[avrdude-dev] [bug #37812] STK500V2 not programming "blank" pages when not erasing flash (-D)

[Simon Sabato]

Follow-up Comment #4, bug #37812 (project avrdude):

I will make three more cases for why I think there should be an option to skip
the "don't program blank pages" optimization.  Then I will go away.   

1) there is an assumption built in that an "erased" page is full of 1's.  It
is slightly inelegant to not have any way of working around that assumption in
a system which behaved differently, should such a system ever be implemented. 


2) if you don't provide that option, you will be potentially incorrectly
programming many many existing Arduinos where the default is now to use the
bootloader to program.  

3) if you don't provide that option, BEST CASE solution (and what you propose)
is that the bootloader will have to emulate full-chip-erase by doing a
page-by-page erase of the entire chip, before programming.  This is (a) much
slower than full-chip erase, and (b) almost never necessary, because most
people don't program the whole chip.  

#3 is a very inelegant best case solution to a problem that could be resolved
by merely disabling an optimization in the code (which in 99% of cases will
have no speed impact at all).  

If this a matter of effort in making the change, I will gladly volunteer my
time!  :) 

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