@takaswie ah this was a workaround because the switch matrix had a serious bug. The serial console was not usable after changing the clocks. Thus some interesting workaround were added to get serial console access.
Yes, the dm1000 pin multiplexer in hardware has this sever bug. As soon the clocks are set the TX/RX pins are gone forever (*). Not slow or so, gone.
We implemented various interesting workarounds to get the serial console out of the dm1000 after switching the clocks.
This was almost the end of the company at this point, because there was no money for fixing the mask.
(*) if you don't set the clocks, the ARM CPU runs with a couple of kHz.
IIRC, a few years later, after we had the new chip generation (dm1200), the dm1000 mask was fixed and we got native serial console. Though it was a bit too late, no one cared.
We (engineering) estimated we spend propably more money in the work around than the mask fix would have been.
The second generation chip was called 'Chekov' (Star Trek) and was available under different product names. IIRC, dm1500 was mostly for the FireWire products and dm12xx was for kitchen radio style products.
I can't remember those details. Sorry, it's been a while.