Welcome

2022/01/16: Let’s start 2022 with some first, good news!

• We use Tox. See Team for contact details.
  Follow me by reading my Tox Status Message!

• All Core Projects have been updated: Zerocat Chipflasher v0.6.2, Zerocat Coreboot Machines v0.16.3, Zerocat Artwork v0.0.7, Zerocat Project Template v0.0.12, Zerocat Label Documentation v0.2.0 – These projects now refer to the same guix channel, guix b603554ed0, helping you to create bit-identical results.

• Next steps will be: A new Chipflasher PCB, a Funding Page Proposal, new Laptops for the Shop

— K. Mertens

2021/12/31: Hurray, the year is over!

It was a difficult year for me and many others, so we do not need to make a resumé! Let’s focus on the next steps instead – I can’t wait to make them all come true in 2022:

1. Zerocat Chipflasher Flashrom Interface made great progress and continues to receive funding from the NLnet foundation! The project is now starting with core milestone #3(10).

2. Boost production of the latest free software laptops. In 2022 we will continue to provide the best quality laptops and promote their use. Current trends in digital surveillance, social control and pressure, makes this more relevant than ever. We are all in urgent need of private, secure communication equipment and all-purpose computers.

3. Launch of Zerocat’s crowd funding page. As we move into many new projects, we need funds to scale up!

I wish you all the very best for the new year and invite you to stop using compromised hardware and smartphones, throw them away! The sooner we liberate ourselves from that crap, the better we can save families, neighboorhoods and societies. — K. Mertens

2021/12/27: Zerocat Chipflasher v0.6.1 released! This is a major step! The interface to the project’s connect utility has greatly been improved. You have full access to chips’ configuration registers and their protection and lock bits.

As an exciting, special feature, it also lets you access and lock the Secured One-Time-Programmable Regions, often found on ThinkPads. Lock the regions, before someone else will do it!

Furthermore, end-of-write-cycle detection can be switched from polling to timeout – This eases flashing of ThinkPad models T530 and W530.

Please note that Zerocat Coreboot Machines has been advanced, too. It now ships version v0.16.2.

Last but not least, all project documentations support inline images – I very much hope you like that!

— K. Mertens

2021/10/26: Zerocat Coreboot Machines v0.16.0 released!
The project has been cleaned up, it should be very easy to use now. Special thanks to those hackers that have supplied hardware and that have tried the project on their own – you helped to improve it! See NEWS. — K. Mertens

2021/10/11: Some Progress / Jour Fixe

• Zerocat Coreboot Machines comes with important fixes and new targets. See NEWS.

• Zerocat Artwork ships new, simple screen backgrounds, which look very nice in conjunction with the boot menu provided by Zerocat Coreboot Machines.

• Zerocat Chipflasher comes with fixed “Batch Erase” option. See Version History.

• The Jour Fixe moves from sundays to mondays. See Team Page This gives room for family activities on week-ends.

• Post 2021/06/26 has been edited.

— K. Mertens

2021/09/26: New Projects / New Versions / New Documentation

• Logotypes and graphics are now shipped with Zerocat Artwork. Let’s go for new logotypes, screen backgrounds, as well as T-Shirt templates.
• Zerocat Project Template offers a simple project skeleton with markdown-based documentation system. It is meant as a starting point for new projects, and to ease contribution.
• Zerocat Coreboot Machines now comes with version “v0.15.0”, which in turn uses upgraded Coreboot, GRUB2 and SeaBIOS. The bootmenu has been refined to support encrypted disks behind USB-SATA-Adapters.
• Projects Zerocat Turning Hook, Zerocat PS/2-Keyboard and Zerocat Label Documentation have been cleaned up.

— K. Mertens

2021/06/28: Project Chipflasher “flashrom-interface” has been updated: 1) Interface configuration has been put under user control. 2) Firmware “kick2” comes with improved block read operations (byte, page, block, chip) for the “connect” utility. 3) Next steps are tracked in project’s TODO file. — K. Mertens

2021/06/26: Sad to say, Zerocat Store Corner is closed. It is time to look for a new location, long-term or temporal, event-based. — K. Mertens

2021/06/14: New Achievement! Installation of an encrypted Parabola GNU/Linux-libre System is now supported per Zerocat’s alternate install script. See “Coreboot-Machines” dropdown menu. — K. Mertens

2020/12/23: Free designs become even more important these times, as we see that societies rely on solidarité rather than on commercial market in cases of emergency. The right way to go is to request free designs not only for software, hardware and seeds, but for immunology vaccine as well. — K. Mertens