This SPI flasher is part of a much larger project. As the whole system grows, so does each part and a spin-off becomes necessary for reliability and stability.

I want to make a high quality system with a great tutorial that most DIYers can follow. All help and feedback is welcome ! Who would like to test the tutorial ? Who wants to add parts to the list of supported chips ? What other features are needed ?

The documentation has grown fast so far but it's going to stall for a very common reason: it will deal now with software. Software development is slow. Hardware design is comparatively simple, easy and fast. Software is the quicksand of computing. Please excuse me for the delays ;-)

I have developed quite a bit of software and I have a working and cool Flashing system at home but the spin-off requires a complete review of all the code, a deep rafactoring to make it totally stand-alone and suitable for your use. Your help is again more than welcome. My plan includes a total rewrite from the ground up:

• get a Pi2 board (I'm using B and B+ now but many use the newest shinier ones) but I'm so broke right now... => done thanks @bsteph27 !
• create a suitable Raspbian derivative => ongoing as #Raspbian Squeezed (please be patient)
• Modify the GPIO and SPI code to support BCM2836 (not hard)
• Write a CPU-agnostic SPI version with bit-banging (for other platforms, even a PC-LPT one ?)
• Include support for #DIPSY (easy)
• Make the source code easy to download, compile and use...
• I can host small packages but how to distribute a large Pi OS image without breaking my server ? ==> see #Raspbian Squeezed and its scripts

As you see, writing this page is only a tiny part of all the required development. How could you help me ?