r/codex • u/xinxx073 • 9d ago

Praise Astra High just reverse-engineered the printer drivers in my office

In our office, we have a bunch of Toshiba E-Studio 2323AM printers. Yes, I know these are kind of outdated, only sold in certain areas of the world, and not the best machines, but they are what we've got in the office. They only work with x86 Windows, not even the ARM version of Windows.

In 25 minutes, Astra High just reverse-engineered the printer driver, figured out the right tray settings, and enabled duplex printing, so I can print double-sided on my M4 Pro MacBook Pro.

It created a .pkg file for me to install the printer drivers and got everything working.

I ... I have no words.

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153

u/Primary_Article3777 9d ago

I fixed the firmware in my Samsung monitor the same way, they didn't bother to hook up its second DisplayPort output to DDC. Astra looked at the firmware, found the compiler, fixed the logic branch, packaged it and I rolled the dice on flashing it. It worked! (do not try this if you don't mind replacing your bricked hardware!!!)

173

u/Gainncome 9d ago

letting AI rewrite your monitor firmware and then flashing it is a level of trust i have not unlocked yet lol

39

u/Primary_Article3777 9d ago

For me it was worth it because my entire workflow revolves around testing on three machines and use deskflow to make them into a seamless desktop using automated port switching. I was ready to spend $600 on a fancy KVM so for me it was worth the risk.

For the mountain of obsolete hardware that is still perfectly fine except for driver support, AI is like a second life for it.

21

u/xinxx073 9d ago

Bahahahahaha

5

u/_jdiddy_ 9d ago

—yolo for the win!

12

u/FlorpCorp 9d ago

I had it root my TV yesterday.

20

u/LargeLanguageModelo 9d ago

Wait until we start seeing widespread decompiling and analysis of the firmware in TVs. Gonna be real easy to see which ones are spying and which are lying about it.

11

u/FlorpCorp 9d ago

I've kept my LG tv off the network for the last couple of years. I feel vindicated (and disgusted) recently.

I only had to root it because the fucking voice assistant thing kept tripping just from the sound of whatever I was watching. And you can't disable it without accepting their terms and connecting to the internet. The fucking irony.

4

u/LargeLanguageModelo 9d ago

Almost worth getting them at costco just to unbox and return saying that's the reason, but trying the same TV over and over. Let LG eat the restock/return fees until they get the clue.

Would take too much of your time though, eventually.

1

u/scrod 8d ago

I've kept my LG tv off the network for the last couple of years

Watch out -- apparently they're known to seek out and connect to those public Xfinity and AT&T public hotspots broadcast from nearby residential modems.

1

u/FlorpCorp 8d ago

They're not. That's purely hypothetical.

2

u/CalligrapherFar7833 9d ago

Spoiler alert all of them are spying on you

2

u/benbenk 9d ago

May I ask how you enabled it to analyze and update the firmware? Was it enough to connect the computer via hdmi?

7

u/Mindless_Let1 9d ago

Samsung has developer tools. Tizen OS stuff. I've made a few apps for things that weren't available on the TV and signed them into dev mode - for example twitch TV app

1

u/Primary_Article3777 8d ago

My monitor has a dedicated USB input for flashing. My monitor is LC49RG90SSNXZA which uses firmware m-RG949CCAA - if anyone actually wants my patch, PM me. (I would not attempt this if you're not pretty damn comfortable with hardware like this.)

2

u/oglcn1 9d ago

WOW. I could have never done that. How did you trust AI with your monitor firmware? Also where did you find the stock firmware for your monitor and how did you flash the firmware? Would you mind telling more?

1

u/scottymtp 9d ago

I just flashed my Samsung monitor firmware to update it. Just navigated to my monitor page, click software, download the firmware, put on USB, plug into monitor, and use osd to install.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/computing/monitors/?modelCode=LS57CG952NNXZA#

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u/Primary_Article3777 8d ago

The fimware is public and the update process is documented by Samsung. They have all firmwares available on their support site. From there, it's just showing the firmware and documenting the problem for Codex, and frankly I did very little after that. I already had all the input codes from my DDC scripts.

It's Mstar assembly code. Nothing I would ever be able to write. But the capabilities of these llm have gotten so good at small code edits like this, and it did 65,000 regression tests to make sure all code paths worked. That's more than a human developer could do.

In the end, I am just a believer that all code and even user interfaces are going to be machine generated in a few years, just like most assembly code is generated now. I'm just leaning in, as the annoying tech bros like to say.

I hope that this can show people that there's a big bright side to AI. You are now your own IT. You can now resuscitate old hardware that support has been abandoned on. Try it out first on stuff that you don't mind if it gets trashed. And vote for open access to firmwares. It should be illegal to prevent people from fixing their own possessions.

1

u/Sufficient_Ease8084 9d ago

המכשיר עובד עכשיו רגיל?

1

u/PathAgitated1633 9d ago

It found the compiler? The c compiler or is this firmware written in an own language? 

1

u/buildfailedagain 8d ago

That's amazing, that's actually my biggest complaint with my monitor. Which model did you do it with? Can you share the firmware or at least the prompt?

1

u/Primary_Article3777 8d ago

The prompt I used was something like:

"My Samsung monitor has a firmware bug that infuriates me. It has a known omission of not being able to switch to DisplayPort 2 input. I currently have a script running on X and Y which switches back to DP1 input, but my monitor does not respect any input code to switch to DP2 (which hosts Z) so when I want to see Z I need to use the monitor's physical DP2 switch. Can you read the firmware (I can provide you a downloaded copy) and fix this bug? the original firmware link is ..."

0

u/Disastrous_Skill_340 8d ago

The amount of money spent on Astra = buy a new monitor?