Salvaging Baytrail/Android tablets

[Jeff_J_]

Greetings,
 

A few years ago I suggested a non-profit I work for purchase 30 Intel "branded" Baytrail tablets that were built by ECS (ecsusa.com). This turned out to be a really bad decision as neither Intel nor ECS want anything to do with supporting them, never have. Since the day I bought them I got the "call Intel / call ECS" dance. Super lame.
 

The tablets run Android 4.2.2 (3.4.34 kernel, build number 40105-0017.00.01.01)
The tablets are ECS TA70CA2

All of the apps we use to take donations, etc have upgraded for various security reasons and these tablets are becoming boat anchors. The hardware is good. The total lack of software support is the problem.
 

I need to flash these tablets with something more recent. I have seen 4.4.2 images on 01.org but they aren't in the format I need. ECS did tell me I needed to use the Intel Phone Flash Tool to update them. Funny since they wouldn't give me a newer OS version to flash them with.
 

Since all ECS did was take Intel's Baytrail tablet reference spec and build it, is there any way I can compile my own version of KitKat, Lollipop or newer?
 

Right now I have an original 4.2.2 flash package from ECS and its a zip file (TA70CA2_i_Bundle_T1_Signed_user_40105_Release.zip) that contains:

boot.bin
CLVP_CTAK_ww23_008_SOS_2ndLCD.bin
CTAK_SIGNED_CLVp_FWR_DnX_20.37.bin
CTAK_SIGNED_CLVp_OSR_DnX_20.37.bin
droidboot.img
flash.xml
partition.tbl
recovery.img
signed_CLVP_CTAK_SoftFuseFile.bin
system.img.gz

Under the hood it's all Linux, especially in this case IA Linux. I'm sure those bin files are some shims of some kind for the platform.
 

I'm trying to rejuvenate these tablets, remember non-profit, and I'm hoping someone can suggest how to create a newer OS load for these tablets that use the Intel PhoneFlashTool to download it to the tablets.
 

Thanks!

[Quoc-Thai_L_Intel]

You might want to check with the Intel(R) XDK forum. They may have some inputs for you on this topic. URL: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk

Regards, Thai

[Quoc-Thai_L_Intel]

You might want to check with the Intel(R) XDK team.  They may have some input for you.  URL: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk

Regards, -Thai