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Is the ISOSTICK abandoned?


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#1 Sidewinder

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 03:09 PM

I haven't seen updates in years.  Is this abandoned?  Will you ever update it to support modern booting via EFI?  Are you willing to share the code so some of us, myself included, can update it to support EFI and make this work again?

 

please?



#2 Sidewinder

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 03:11 PM

I mean, putting the code up (with it's history) up on github would be an amazing way to collaborate on this.  I'm sure the community would really benefit from this.



#3 elegantinvention

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 03:38 PM

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My plan is to publish the code on github this year. As evidenced by lack of updates, I no longer have the time to maintain it myself, though I do continue to sell isostick and handle support. The project will be open-sourced under the permissive MIT license.


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#4 Sidewinder

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 04:46 PM

My plan is to publish the code on github this year. As evidenced by lack of updates, I no longer have the time to maintain it myself, though I do continue to sell isostick and handle support. The project will be open-sourced under the permissive MIT license.

 

This is great to hear!

 

It's unfortunate that you've had little time to work on it. However, I look forward to being a contributor and will contact you via github with my updates. Hopefully they will work out for all of us!



#5 TheHive

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Posted 25 February 2017 - 07:59 AM

:magic: :thumbup:


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#6 yellowcard

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Posted 20 July 2017 - 09:56 PM

Where are you at with being able to open source it? I'd love to dig in and fix some things.



#7 Gilligan

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Posted 17 January 2018 - 05:32 AM

Any update? I see there is an ElegantInvention Organization on github here: https://github.com/ElegantInvention but sadly no code. I'm sorely disappointed as I'd finally gotten a chance to buy one off Amazon, and found isosel won't load at all on my machines... Hoping it can be revived by the community!


Edited by Gilligan, 17 January 2018 - 05:32 AM.


#8 LittlBUGer

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Posted 06 February 2018 - 06:40 PM

I too would love to see the code posted and this made open source. I use the device several times a week still (though it's getting more annoying as time goes on with Secure Boot and UEFI devices). It would be awesome if this could continue in some way. Please keep us updated!

 

Thanks.  :)



#9 steve6375

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Posted 08 February 2018 - 03:48 PM

I don't know much about the IsoStick, but what advantages does it have over using an Easy2Boot USB flash drive which lets you have unlimited Secure Boot, UEFI and MBR bootable images?



#10 LittlBUGer

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Posted 08 February 2018 - 04:22 PM

I don't know much about the IsoStick, but what advantages does it have over using an Easy2Boot USB flash drive which lets you have unlimited Secure Boot, UEFI and MBR bootable images?

I'm not familiar with Easy2Boot myself though I have heard of it. From what I can tell as far as UEFI goes, you have to first convert your ISOs and whatnot to a special format (.imgPTN) and configure it differently in order to work? Also, I don't know if Easy2Boot allows you to change ISO files on-the-fly within Windows and have it load up the new one within seconds for installs and other things that don't require to be booted from. If it's ONLY for booting from images, then that's one main place where it differs from the ISO Stick which works both ways. That and you don't have to worry about the size limit of the USB drive itself as the ISO stick runs off of microSD card storage. So, for instance, you can have several 32GB or 64GB cards with a variety of different images and just switch them out as needed.

 

I could be wrong with how Easy2Boot works and there's probably more as far as differences go, but from my experience that's what I would guess.



#11 steve6375

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Posted 08 February 2018 - 06:06 PM

Yes, for UEFI you do need to convert the ISO but you can select any .imgPTN file and 'switch it in' from Windows.

But once converted to a .imgPTN file, you can boot to it and then in Windows you can select a different .imgPTN file using the SWITCH_E2B,exe utility and access the files within it. But don't most Windows OS's allow you to mount ISOs anyway (using ImDisk or native Windows?),

E2B can run from a USB SD card reader + SD card (pref. USB 3 card reader for best speed).

There are some ISOs that E2B cannot boot however (ones that need to see a 'CD drive').

It may be an alternative solution for you for UEFI/Secure booting issues?



#12 sbromulo

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Posted 20 May 2018 - 04:15 AM

Yes, sad but true, the isostick owner gets a lot of money selling a hardware without software updates... congrats...



#13 Sidewinder

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Posted 08 June 2018 - 07:03 AM

Any news on publicizing the source? It's been almost 14 months since my initial question.

#14 Chandra-Orbit

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Posted 01 October 2018 - 04:06 AM

It seems developers are reluctant to publish source code because they are happy with the advantages of hardware products even though for now the isostick product is found to be incompatible with the latest OS  :D



#15 Sidewinder

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Posted 09 September 2019 - 01:32 AM

It's been over 2.5 years since you said it would be moved to github.  Do you have any updates at all?  



#16 KroFF

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Posted 07 October 2020 - 05:12 AM

i started using the iodd 2541 a long time ago and lately the iodd mini :)
not open source, but its the best way to mount endless isos, vhds, ...

came here just to see if there is anything new...found my old isostick when cleaning the house :)

Edited by KroFF, 07 October 2020 - 05:13 AM.


#17 Sidewinder

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Posted 17 February 2021 - 12:33 AM

Hey, Lain.  where are ya man?



#18 Pheckphul

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Posted 23 September 2021 - 05:51 AM

I don't know much about the IsoStick, but what advantages does it have over using an Easy2Boot USB flash drive which lets you have unlimited Secure Boot, UEFI and MBR bootable images?

 

 

How about the fact that it came out in 2011, waaaaaaaaaay before Easy2Boot? As far as I know, it was the first solution to offer booting ISO files off of a USB stick. It would still be kick-ass today if it were 1) Supported 2) USB 3.0 3)ISOsel was fully implemented.

 

I got my ISOstick off of the Kickstarter, and was very happy with it, but eventually moved on to the IODD. Just dropped by to what the status of the project was.



#19 Pheckphul

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Posted 23 September 2021 - 06:08 AM

i started using the iodd 2541 a long time ago and lately the iodd mini :)
not open source, but its the best way to mount endless isos, vhds, ...

came here just to see if there is anything new...found my old isostick when cleaning the house :)

 

I think that the IODD Mini is way too expensive, and overkill for a bootable ISO solution. I'm happy with my IODD-2541 that I was sent instead of the 2531 I ordered. I don't need the encryption, but I prefer the interface to the jog-wheel that the 2531 has (same as on my Zalman ZM-VE200 and VE350, which are rebranded IODD products). I switched to the Zalman ZM-VE200 about a year after buying the ISOstick because of its superior ability to switch between ISOs, faster storage, and eSATA support.



#20 Sidewinder

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Posted 29 September 2022 - 02:15 PM

My plan is to publish the code on github this year. As evidenced by lack of updates, I no longer have the time to maintain it myself, though I do continue to sell isostick and handle support. The project will be open-sourced under the permissive MIT license.

 

Hey, man. Just checking in to see how it's going and if you're still around.

 

 

i started using the iodd 2541 a long time ago and lately the iodd mini :)
not open source, but its the best way to mount endless isos, vhds, ...

came here just to see if there is anything new...found my old isostick when cleaning the house :)

 

I just found mine as well.  the iodd being able to boot vhd files is really great too so I'm eager to try it out when it arrives.



#21 assarbad

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Posted 05 February 2024 - 08:58 PM

Without wanting to be mean or anything, I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

The two ISOsticks I purchased never worked on most of the hardware I used over the years (probably owed to how it does its magic compared to alternatives like iODD devices), which was one of the reasons I was hoping for the source to be able to debug and address some of these issues myself (of course it's harder to debug something when you don't have access to a similarly built system as the user).

 

I have an email from mid-January 2013 (you all can count how many years that is) in which I asked about the promise made on Kickstarter to open-source the code "this year" (so I guess I meant 2013 at the time). The promise I had seen on Kickstarter was to publish it under MIT license, btw. The response was -- paraphrasing, as I am not sure if it's okay to quote verbatim in full -- that the code for the firmware updater and ISO manager would be published "in the next week or two" (for reference, that would have been eleven years and a few days ago at this point). To this day I haven't seen any of that, let alone the firmware code itself.

 

So while I'd still be mildly curious to see the code, I don't think it's ever going to happen. And even if or when it does, I am very happy with the solutions based on iODD/Zalman devices which fully emulate ODDs without requiring the ability to run code on the host booting from them.



#22 assarbad

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Posted 05 February 2024 - 08:59 PM

Wow, sorry for the double post. But when trying to save it I received some error about some SQL issue ... and since I couldn't see my post just yet, I tried again.


Edited by assarbad, 05 February 2024 - 09:02 PM.





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