Arduino Mega 2560 R3 bootloader

[kbb]

Older 2560s had problems w/ character strings "!!!"

Is the bootloader in R3 fixed? Are there other problems I need to be aware of before I purchase one?

thanks,

[westfw]

The 2560 bootloader fixes haven't made it into production Arduino MEGAs yet, so it will still have the "!!!" bug.
There is fixed SOURCE here: https://github.com/msproul/Arduino-stk500v2-bootloader (but no new .hex file.)

The other issue to be aware of is that a lot of programmers have troubles programming beyond the 64kwork limit (including ArduinoISP and Adafruit's USBTinyISP), so even if you compile the fixed source to a .hex file, you may have trouble getting it loaded onto the chip.

[linux-works]

anyone know any progress on this?

my arduino code seems to have a few '!!!' sequences in the binary ;(

sigh.

and the rev3 mega2560 boards can't seem to load reliably. it seems its been this way for MONTHS now.

what gives? why is this showstopper still around? arduino 1.01 still has the bug, btw.

what can we do to move this along to get it out to release? my megas are useless other than the simplistic 'blink' program ;(

(posting here since bill seems to know about this bug.)