It's not entirely my call, Bob. Part of the problem is that the ability to directly edit IR codes was added late in the day, and Pronto itself doesn't do very rigorous error-checking of the code before trying to send it.

I seriously doubt we'd publish the serial port protocol, since it's the same mechanism that's used to upgrade the firmware. We would have no control over the quality of software that someone might write if we made the protocol public, and that could cause us a serious support burden.

Philips doesn't make enough profit on the units to be able to sustain a high support load for it. I can't speak for anyone else, but I want Philips to see this as a successful product, so that it will get the kind of support (s/w upgrades, new models) I think we'd all like to see.

Perhaps other approaches might open it up sufficiently for others. Publishing the format of CCF files, for example.