Firmware

Release Note
ADDERLink Infinity &
ADDERLink Infinity Dual
Adder Technology Limited

By: Simon Hargraves

Date: October 2016

Revision History:3.7
Date Author
12/09/2016 Simon Hargraves
19/10/2017 Simon Brunger

Registered Address: Adder Corporation Adder Technology

Adder Technology Limited 24 Henry Graf Road (Asia Pacific) Pte. Ltd.,
Saxon Way, Newburyport, 73 Ubi Road 1
Bar Hill, Cambridge MA 01950 # 08-62 Oxley Bizhub
CB3 8SL, UK USA Singapore
408733

Experts in Connectivity Solutions © Adder Technology Limited October 16

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Table of Contents
AdderLink Infinity / AdderLink Infinity Dual Firmware release ..........................................3
Important note – package contents ..............................................................................3
Version 3.7.40368 – Field upgrade ..............................................................................4
Version 3.6.40395 – Field upgrade ..............................................................................4
Version 3.5.33713 – Field upgrade ..............................................................................4
Improvements ..............................................................................................................5
Version 3.4.31307 – Factory release ALIF2020TX, ALIF2020RX ................................5
Version 3.3.30852 – Factory release and Field upgrade..............................................5
Upgrade notes..............................................................................................................5
New Features ...............................................................................................................5
Improvements ..............................................................................................................6
Known issues ...............................................................................................................6
Version 3.1.28732 – Field upgrade ..............................................................................7
Improvements ..............................................................................................................7
Version 3.1.26982 – Field upgrade ..............................................................................7
Improvements ..............................................................................................................7
Version 3.1.24904 – Field upgrade ..............................................................................7
Improvements ..............................................................................................................7
Version 3.0.24494 – First release of V3 - Field upgrade ..............................................7
New Features ...............................................................................................................7
Improvements ..............................................................................................................8
Version 2.9.21660 – Factory release and Field upgrade..............................................8
New Features ...............................................................................................................8
Improvements ..............................................................................................................8
Version 2.8.21131 – Factory release and Field upgrade..............................................9
New Features ...............................................................................................................9
Known issues ...............................................................................................................9
Version 2.7.19614 – Factory release and Field upgrade..............................................9
New Features ...............................................................................................................9
Improvements ............................................................................................................ 10
Known issues ............................................................................................................. 10
Version 2.6.18144 ...................................................................................................... 10
Improvements ............................................................................................................ 10
Version 2.4.17650 ...................................................................................................... 10
Improvement .............................................................................................................. 10
Version 2.3.17480 ...................................................................................................... 11

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New features .............................................................................................................. 11

Improvements ............................................................................................................ 11
AdderLink Infinity Dual ALIF2002T only ..................................................................... 11
New Feature .............................................................................................................. 11
Version 2.2.15929 ALIF1000T & 1000R only ............................................................. 12
New features .............................................................................................................. 12
Version 2.1.15691 ALIF2000T and 2000R only ......................................................... 12
New features .............................................................................................................. 12
Version 1.8.11330 ...................................................................................................... 12
Version 1.4.10640 ...................................................................................................... 13
Version 1.3.10385 ...................................................................................................... 13
Version 1.0.10048 .................................................................................................... 13

AdderLink Infinity / AdderLink Infinity Dual Firmware release

Important note – package contents

The upgrade package contains two images for each product variant, a main and backup image. The main
image runs by default however if there is an issue you may be advised to run the backup image by
placing the dipswitch into the down position. It is advisable to upgrade both the backup and the main
images and AIM requires that this happens.

Each of the following product types use the following upgrade files.

ALIF1000T upgrade_backup_adder.bin.tx.3.6.40395
upgrade_main_adder.bin.tx.3.6.40395

ALIF1000R upgrade_backup_adder.bin.rx.3.6.40395
upgrade_main_adder.bin.rx.3.6.40395

ALIF1002T upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder.bin.txs.3.6.40395
upgrade_dvix2_main_adder.bin.txs.3.6.40395

ALIF1002R upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder.bin.rxs.3.6.40395
upgrade_dvix2_main_adder.bin.rxs.3.6.40395

ALIF2000T upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder.bin.tx.3.6.40395
Upgrade_dvix2_main_adder.bin.tx.3.6.40395

ALIF2002T upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder.bin.txb.3.6.40395
Upgrade_dvix2_main_adder.bin.txb.3.6.40395

ALIF2112T upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder_bin.txv.3.6.40395
Upgrade_dvix2_main_adder_bin.txv.3.6.40395

ALIF2000R upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder_bin.rx.3.6.40395
Upgrade_dvix2_main_adder_bin.rx.3.6.40395

ALIF2020T upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder_bin.txt.3.6.40395
Upgrade_dvix2_main_adder_bin.txt.3.6.40395

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ALIF2020R upgrade_dvix2_backup_adder_bin.rxt.3.6.40395
Upgrade_dvix2_main_adder_bin.rxt.3.6.40395

Version 3.7.40368 – Field upgrade

IMPORTANT: After upgrading to the Reliability version, it will only be possible to upgrade to another
firmware release that also has the same reliability fix.

Fix: Low Level Control Change

Changed the way that the flash memory is accessed and managed.

Version 3.6.40395 – Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 4.0.40185

This version is available for all models in the Adderlink Infinity range.

Added: USB Card Reader Support.

Smart Card Readers are now supported by the addition of a new flow control mechanism which is
enabled automatically.

Improved: Touch Screen Support.

USB changes have been made in order to support 10 point touch screens.

Improved: Support for Apple Mac PRO

There have been some general improvements made to improve the USB reliability when connected to the
Apple Mac PRO.

Improved: Web UI security.

Reported webpage vulnerabilities resolved

Version 3.5.33713 – Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 3.3.30913 or AIM 4.0.32746

This version is available for all models in the Adderlink Infinity range.

Added: USB Flow Control.

A new USB quirk Flow control has been created. This can be enabled per USB port and is applied as a
setting in the user field of the advanced USB options page. See appendix describing the use of advanced
USB options. With this setting enabled we can now support more USB devices in particular;

U-Touch / PQ Labs touch screens, and NewTek Tricasters

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To enable Flow Control type 0x1000AAA in the User code field of the RX Advanced USB features or
167799946 in the User code field on AIM.

Improvements
Improved: Teaming operation

Redundancy for more than 6 USB devices has been added. With 3.3 firmware if there were more than 6
USB devices connected to a receiver not all six devices would recover when a network segment failed. It
is now possible to support up to 13 USB devices in a fail over situation.

Version 3.4.31307 – Factory release ALIF2020TX, ALIF2020RX

This version is intended for use with AIM 3.3.30913

Added: New models in the AdderLink Infinity Dual range.

The ALIF2020T and ALIF2020R models have been added to the AdderLink Infinity range. These dual
head/ Single Link DVI extenders have the same functionality as the AdderLink Infinity Dual models. This
version is the initial factory release for these endpoints only.

Version 3.3.30852 – Factory release and Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 3.3.30913

Upgrade notes
It is important to read these notes before attempting an installation with v3.3 code.

1) Always upgrade AIM to v3.3 before attempting to upgrade AdderLink Infinity units to v3.3 or add
any AdderLink Infinity units at v3.3
2) If you add an AdderLink Infinity endpoint at v3.3 to an earlier version of AIM, then upgrade AIM to
v3.3 the endpoints will not operate after the upgrade. To rectify this– you will have to delete the
record from the AIM database and factory reset the endpoint before it will reacquire.
3) The ALIF1002 units only are available with v3.3 firmware so it is mandatory to upgrade AIM to
v3.3 to use ALIF1002 – This is because earlier versions of AIM have no knowledge of the new
product.
4) If you receive an AdderLink Infinity endpoint at v3.3 and you don’t want to upgrade your AIM
system, simply upload the firmware, you are currently running on your system, to the endpoint
and it will downgrade. This works on all models except the ALIF1002, and ALIF2020.

New Features

Added: New models in the AdderLink Infinity Dual range.

The ALIF1002T and ALIF1002R models have been added to the AdderLink Infinity range. These single
head/ Single Link DVI extenders have the same functionality as the AdderLink Infinity Dual models.
Added: TLS encryption.

All AdderLink Infinity to AdderLink Infinity communication and AIM to AdderLink Infinity communication is
now encrypted using TLS security. AIM has a security certificate and each AdderLink Infinity extender has
a unique key in order to communicate with AIM. This means that all AdderLink Infinities on a 3.3 AIM
system need to be running AdderLink infinity 3.3 firmware. If the AIM is factory reset all the AdderLink
Infinities on the AIM system will also need to be factory reset.

Added: New compression engine AFZ+.

All second generation AdderLink Infinities now support a new compression algorithm AFZ+. This now
gives an option to apply more compression if required in order to reduce the bandwidth requirements.

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Enhanced video compression options

It is now possible to use AFZ+ compression in addition to AFZ if required. There are four new
compression settings;

Pixel perfect Only uses pixel perfect AFZ

Adaptive Guarantees frame rate – builds to pixel perfect
Smoothest video This forces the maximum compression
Advanced This enables you choose a fixed compression

In advanced mode, there are 4 values that can be entered.

1 AFZ only (pixel perfect)

2 AFZ+ Minimum compression
3 AFZ+ Middle compression
4 AFZ+ Maximum compression

Added: Faster channel changes.

When used in conjunction with AIM channel changes using the Hotkeys or the OSD menu have been
speeded up. The video and USB take less than 1 second in order to change channels.

Added: Frame rate matching

It is now possible for the receiver video output to match the frame rate of the video coming into the
transmitter. Other available options are to force 60Hz on the receiver, or to not change the Frame rate if
the video resolution does not change.

Improvements
Improved: Teaming operation

It is now possible to have mixed mode of operation between receivers and transmitters. A fiber only
connection on a transmitter will now operate with a copper only connection on the receiver.

Improved: ALIF2112T Front panel leds.

It is now possible to tell when a network connection has been established on an AdderLink Infinity 2112T.
The VNC led is on solid when a network connection has been made as per the rest of the AdderLink
Infinity Dual range. It will flash to indicate when a VNC connect has been made.

Known issues

If an AdderLink Infinty receiver joins a multicast group consisting of AdderLink Infinity Dual receivers the
redundancy functionality of the AdderLink Infinity Dual is disabled.

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Version 3.1.28732 – Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 3.1

Improvements
Wireless Wacom Pro tablet is now supported.

User selectable Wacom tablet interaction added.

The following fiber modules are now supported;

Copper SFP Adder SFP-CATX-RJ45
Barnfind BTSFP-Gbase Cu

Multi-Mode SFP Adder SFP-MM-LC

Single-Mode SFP Adder SFP-SM-LC

Version 3.1.26982 – Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 3.1

Improvements
Fiber only links are now more resilient to power up timing differences at power on.

USB is more reliable when connected via Fiber only.

Version 3.1.24904 – Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 3.1

Improvements

Front panel led’s now support teaming connections.

Version 3.0.24494 – First release of V3 - Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 3.0

New Features
Added: Teaming

AdderLink Infinity dual is now equipped with two MAC addresses and phy’s for both CATX and SFP ports
for the high speed AdderLink Infinity access. This allows the construction of resilient fail over and
redundancy type systems. Please note that If you where using a fiber only connection with 2.9 upgrading
to 3.0 or above will mean that the IP address for the SFP port will have moved over to being the IP
address of the CATX port. An additional IP address now needs configuring for the SFP port. If there is no
copper connection the Extenders will be un-contactable as the previously configured IP address is for the
copper port only. If the AdderLink Infinity extender pair is being used point to point it will need to be
factory reset after the upgrade.

Added: Management port enabled by default

Management port set to 192.168.1.42

Added: Advanced USB support

A new section for Advanced USB support has been added to the web pages. This feature enables
AdderLink Infinity units to accommodate USB devices with individual characteristics to operate over the
AdderLink Infinity system

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See appendix for documentation about this feature.

Added: Statistics

It is now possible to view bandwidth usage and frame rates achieved using the AdderLink Infinity system.

Improvements
Audio - End to end gain changed for line out

Audio gain set to 1VRMS in equals 1VRMS out

USB - Eizo Screen calibration

The USB has been improved to allow the Eizo ColorEdge screens with built in calibration or via a Color
Monki calibration device.

Version 2.9.21660 – Factory release and Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 2.4.

New Features
Added: ALIF2112T- AFZ support has now been added to the ALIF2112T
See note below explaining AFZ.

Added: Default color depth of VNC server has been set to 15 bits RGB 555.
New color depth setting in Video controls menu.

Improvements
Video:

i) ALIF2112T web browser thumbnails- improved frame grab performance.

ii) VNC speeded up with two 1920x1200 screens.

USB:

i) Microsoft wired 600 keyboard support added.

ii) Logitech wired illuminated keyboard support added.

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Version 2.8.21131 – Factory release and Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 2.4.

New Features
Added: ALIF 2112T. AdderLink Infinity Dual Transmitter with VNC server

AdderLink Infinity dual with an embedded VNC is a high performance KVM server that can be accessed
remotely via IP with a VNC viewer and / or simultaneously with an AdderLink Infinity receiver. Its base
feature set is the same as the AdderLink Infinity dual with the addition of:

 View 2560x 1600 or two 1920x 1200 sessions

 Real VNC server with RFP 3.3 support
 Up to 256bit AES and RSA 2048 encryption
 VM support and RS232 for power control
 Supports 16 users simultaneously
 Out of band Bios level access
 Compatible with AdderLink Infinity Matrix

Added: Support for hot key switching

Support is added for hot key switching which allows for much faster channel or preset changes.
This feature is only applicable when in use with AIM 2.4

Added: Eizo Flex scan T2351 Touch screens are now supported

Known issues
i) Microsoft 600 wired keyboard is not supported

Version 2.7.19614 – Factory release and Field upgrade

This version is intended for use with AIM 2.3.

New Features
Added: New lossless CODEC (AFZ) ALIF 2002T only

The new compression scheme builds on the existing codec and is primarily focused on improving the
performance for "natural" images (i.e. photographs and movies).It works in concert with the existing
codec and is automatically selected whenever there is a benefit to do so.
The new codec is lossless and is very low latency (a small fraction of a frame delay). It generally achieves
50% improvement (in compression) over the current scheme for any areas of the screen that consist of
images, gradients, shadows etc., elements commonly found in modern desktop environments.
To maintain compatibility with non AFZ -enabled transmitters and receivers there is an automatic
switching method which will revert back to RLE when an AdderLink Infinity receiver is connected to the
Infinity Dual.

Added: The ability to clone video outputs.

It is now possible to view the same video content on each of the video heads. This is useful if you are
using screens back to back, attaching another extender or transmission device like the AdderLink Digital
ipeps. By ‘splitting’ the video at the receiver, you will only need to transmit the video to one transmitter,
therefore limiting the data required to transmit the video to two screens (or other devices).

Added: Dual Link video mode of 2560x2048@50Hz.

It is not possible to support this resolution at 60Hz.

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Added USB Multi-Port configuration added.

In some cases it is necessary to turn of the USB merging e.g. when using two identical touch screens.
When this is enabled the USB merging is disabled on the bottom two USB ports of the receiver only. The
port numbers of the devices are kept the same on the USB host which allows for two identical touch
screens to be connected to the Infinity dual system. This is only applicable when using the Infinity dual in
point to point mode there is no support for this in AIM2.3 at present.

Added: The ability to attach combined USB devices which include isochronous endpoints

While isochronous USB is still not supported, we have added the ability to ignore isochronous endpoints.
Some USB devices like iPhones and Bloomberg keyboards have multiple USB devices reported. If only
one of these devices was isochronous (e.g. supports audio) the entire device was rejected. Now we have
added the ability to ignore isochronous endpoints so while the audio part of the device will still not work,
the other functional will. An iPhone can now be used as a memory device.

Improvements
Video
i) Video modes 600x480 and 800x600 now support 60Hz refresh rate.
ii) Dual screen 1920x1200 video resolution no longer causes network packet loss.
iii) Scroll bars added to OSD when running on screens with lower than 800x 600 resolution I.E
640x480
iv) Hot plug detect settings option of 1 second added

USB
v) Support for Wacom Intuos tablets has been improved
vi) The num lock status in the OSD is now correct.
vii) Improved support for Logitech keyboards at channel changes.

Known issues
i) It is not possible to access the bios on a Dell 990.
ii) Eizo Flex scan T2351 Touch screen is not supported.
iii) Logitech set point drivers are not supported.

Version 2.6.18144

Improvements
Mouse protocol mode detection made more reliable when rebooting the USB host. When the USB host is
rebooted it was possible for the wrong mouse protocol to be set which meant that while the mouse
worked in the OSD menu it did not work on the PC.

Added support for 3M multi-touch screen.

Logitech G9, G500, Microsoft 5000 and Sidewinder mice made more robust when changing channels. It
was observed that these mouse often stopped working when a channel change was made. The USB
code has been made more reliable to cope with these mice.

Version 2.4.17650

Improvement

Faster USB switching. When switching between transmitters the mouse enumeration time has been
reduced to 2 seconds.

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Version 2.3.17480

New features

New Dual link default EDIDs added.

2048x1536, 2048x2048, 2560x1440. Resolutions now added to pull down menus

New Video compatibility check on receivers:

This is disabled by default. The receiver now checks if the monitor can display the requested video
resolution and an out of range error appears if it cannot. This prevents locking out of the OSD when an
incorrect channel is selected.

New USB HID Emulation.

The Transmitter will now emulate HID devices leaving them permanently connected when the receivers
are changed away. This enables faster keyboard and mouse switching and allows for more than 13
identical USB devices. If the keyboards and mice are identical they are only enumerated once by the
host. This operation is only applicable to HID devices (keyboards and mice). Mass storage devices and
others will still enumerate when switched.

New setting on receivers “allow HID devices only”.

Setting to allow all USB devices or “HID only” by receiver.

Improvements
i) Single mode fiber support added for SFP fiber module : SFP-SM-LC
ii) Improved behavior when re-booting Infinity dual no longer causes the loss of the fiber
connection
iii) Fail over options prefer fiber and prefer copper made much more robust.

AdderLink Infinity Dual ALIF2002T only

New Feature
Magic eye (anti-dither support added) this is enabled by default.

The Magic Eye feature increases performance and reduces network traffic when Infinity Dual is used with
Apple Macs and other host computers that have dithered video output. It also improves performance if the
video source is noisy (e.g. from a VGA-to-DVI converter).

Dithering is a technique used by some graphics cards to improve perceived image quality by continuously
slightly varying the colour of each pixel. This gives the illusion of more shades of colour than the display
can really reproduce, and smoothes the appearance of gradually shaded areas in images. Unfortunately
dithering is an issue for KVM extenders such as Infinity because it makes the image appear to be
changing all the time even when it is static, creating much more network data than can be carried by a
Gigabit Ethernet. The result is a reduction in video frame rate, which the user sees as slow mouse
response.

Magic Eye works by ignoring small variations in the video from frame to frame. It is enabled by default as
it is not obvious to the user that his poor mouse behavior is caused by dithering. In most cases Magic Eye
is invisible, but it can of course give slight colour inaccuracies on the monitor. For full colour accuracy
Magic Eye can be disabled for video sources which are not dithered or noisy.

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Version 2.2.15929 ALIF1000T & 1000R only

This version requires AIM 2.0 or above in order to support the mixed AdderLink Infinity, and AdderLink
Infinity dual systems.

New features

Added: Support for AdderLink Infinity Dual.

This allows mixed systems of AdderLink Infinity and AdderLink Infinity Dual to co-exist on the same
network.

Version 2.1.15691 ALIF2000T and 2000R only

Original shipping release for AdderLink Infinity Dual

Version 1.14.14363

This version requires AIM 1.6 in order to get access to the new RX and TX configuration parameters.

New features

Added: New hot plug detect options

Added Auto detect DDC clock speed to solve a no video issue with Austin Hughes
rackdraw.
Added: Support for CEA video timings.
Added: USB country code functionality so 11 international keyboard layouts are now supported
Added: Support for Free-flow mouse within OSD menu
Added: USB boot mode protocol is now fully supported
Added: Dummy boot keyboard
Added: USB speed select functionality USB full/low speed and USB High speed is now
selectable.
Added: Ability to change the reported USB hub size.
The supported USB hub size is13 by default there is now an option to change this to a 7
port hub.

The new TX USB options can be found under the TX configuration page/USB Configuration.

Version 1.9.12071
This version is intended for use with AIM 1.2

Faster USB switching when using AIM

Fixed: Manual multicast left the video IP address incorrectly set
Windows 7 bios support added
Faster video switching when used with AIM

Version 1.8.11330
This version is intended for use with AIM 1.0

Serial protocol added

AIM control disables local web pages.

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Version 1.4.10640

Third frame buffer added to resolve tearing video problems

Version 1.3.10385

Better handling of replicated Ethernet packets.

The audio has a -6dB loss through the extender.
Fixed a problem with Ethernet buffering that led to video blanking.
Added multiple EDID options to default DDC.

Version 1.0.10048

Original Shipping release

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