My Efika MX Smarttop came and I’ve had some fun compiling upb for it and trying it out. I don’t have a pressing ARM use case yet, but I want to work ahead a bit and get familiar with the architecture so that when I do want to program for it I’m not starting from scratch.
I went to the ARM website to get my hands on some documentation. I was prepared to buy physical books if that is their authoritative documentation, but it appears that they have PDFs for the architecture’s reference manuals.
So far so good — this is on par with Intel which has a nice and easily accessible website where you can download any of their manuals in like 5 seconds. I’ve downloaded them and referenced them a countless number of times.
But I get no such love from ARM. Strike 1: the ARM website won’t let you download the manuals unless you have registered first. Not cool ARM, not cool. I grudgingly give them my name, email address, company name, country, and state. And the website warns:
Note: We recommend using your business email address to ensure you can access all your relevant services
This is a vague but ominous warning that if you use a personal email address the registration might not work correctly.
But fine, I go through with the registration. Now I can download the manual, right? Turns out no: first I have to accept a EULA! It begins:
USER AGREEMENT FOR THE ARM ARCHITECTURE REFERENCE MANUAL
THIS AGREEMENT (” AGREEMENT “) IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU (EITHER A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL, OR SINGLE LEGAL ENTITY) AND ARM LIMITED (“ARM”) FOR THE USE OF THE ARM ARCHITECTURE REFERENCE MANUAL. ARM IS ONLY WILLING TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE ARM ARCHITECTURE REFERENCE MANUAL TO YOU ON CONDITION THAT YOU ACCEPT ALL OF THE TERMS IN THIS AGREEMENT. BY CLICKING “I AGREE” OR BY DOWNLOADING OR OTHERWISE COPYING THE DELIVERABLES YOU INDICATE THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL THE TERMS OF THIS LICENCE.
This is all just to read some documentation. Not impressed. ARM, We’re off to a rocky start.