The Ambarella Hack Development Kit

petabytes

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My thread on this at GoPrawn has received a good bit of attention, so I thought it
wouldn't hurt to put it here too.

AHDK is a CHDK/Magic Lantern clone for Ambarella-based devices.

Although Ambarella cameras are already hackable, AHDK extends that and adds
a UI, Tetris, and the ability to extend the Ambsh programming language with C code.

Currently, I have only supported the GoPro Hero 3+ and the Activeon DX, but I've gotten a Hello
World running on the Xiaomi Yi.

And of course, it is free and open source software: https://github.com/petabyt/ahdk

UI demonstration:
Tetris:
GoPro Hero 3+ running Bad Apple:
 
I saw that you needed some help reverse engineering a few things, if you let me know the specifics I can probably help out.
 
Currently, I am interested in figuring out the sensor functions. I was hoping I would eventually
figure out how to record raw images, and eventually, maybe raw video. The one I'm looking at seems
to be called "AMBA_IMG_SENSOR2".
 
My thread on this at GoPrawn has received a good bit of attention, so I thought it
wouldn't hurt to put it here too.

AHDK is a CHDK/Magic Lantern clone for Ambarella-based devices.

Although Ambarella cameras are already hackable, AHDK extends that and adds
a UI, Tetris, and the ability to extend the Ambsh programming language with C code.

Currently, I have only supported the GoPro Hero 3+ and the Activeon DX, but I've gotten a Hello
World running on the Xiaomi Yi.

And of course, it is free and open source software: https://github.com/petabyt/ahdk

UI demonstration:
Tetris:
GoPro Hero 3+ running Bad Apple:
Cool!! Thumbs up for practicality
 
Currently, I am interested in figuring out the sensor functions. I was hoping I would eventually
figure out how to record raw images, and eventually, maybe raw video. The one I'm looking at seems
to be called "AMBA_IMG_SENSOR2".
Do you have the specific binaries/firmware that your interested in uploaded somewhere that I can grab?
 
Sure, I'll send you the memory dump of my Activeon DX (current camera I am working on)
I think the code is mostly the same for most other Ambarella A7 cameras.
 
Last edited:
Just bought a DX for like 10 buck so I can help develop for AHDK on the same system. Did you find a UART port on the cam or is there a way to get UART over USB. I needed a new cam since mine has a soldered mem so it annoying to work on and much easier to brick accidentally.
 
Nice. I don't have any good soldering iron, so I haven't been able to do anything like that.

I know you can get an Ambsh shell over USB on older GoPros, but I haven't tried to get it working on
the DX. I've been working on live code testing (https://diode.zone/w/qsYtR4EamsnzqwdMk2baTS),
which has been very helpful for quickly trying things. In theory, you should be able to get some
kind of shell with that.
 
Hey ^^
I'm the creator of the hackish firmware for the Yi4k which enable many features but more in the Linux part.
I'd like to hack the RTOS part.
This cam is based on A9.
I'm not familiar with C but I can do some little things.
What do you need to begin ?
Also, if you have a chan (Matrix or Discord), I can join.
 
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