WebTV 2 Update

My larger compact flash cards can no longer sustain a full feature Windows XP OS, so I have fallen back to linux. There is nothing wrong with this, but linux on the RM4100 isnt new. The CoreBoot BIOS crew has been working on a replacement BIOS, which should kick my BIOS's ass, since they know what they are doing and I am just using blunt tools to carve away at something I dont fully understand. Dot get me wrong, I know how a BIOS works, but fucked if I can write one from source.

I have Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, and Debain on separate CF cards. Full debain doesnt run too well, a bit too bloated. If you are new to linux and want it on the webTV 2 RM4100 I dont suggest you start with Debian. There is some work needed to be done in order to get the TV Output working though. If you are not linux savvy then I dont know what to say. It will work, but if you arent wise with linux, just try and stick with the other prebuilt flavors.

All hardware in the RM4100 is supported under linux, except native TV output, but that can be fixed with the proper packages. No BIOS level support yet.

Save Now

You can check out the SeaBIOS here: http://www.coreboot.org/SeaBIOS
The main issue here is how do you flash the BIOS? Whelp, im working on a softmod method as well. Its based off the old BootROM Video Test Exploit, but do not expect me to make this work. This is not an area I am familiar with, then again, thats why I enjoy this.

Faceplant of sucksess

I promised I would post more often, and I am a man of my word. Although I prefer to spend my spare time hacking, modding, soldering, and tearing away at the inner soul of machines, my current situation has lent me a few minutes to update. Per previous posts and personality traits, I like to post about something thats worth a damn.

Like I mention over and over and over again, the Webb TV 2 RM4100 hacking is not dead. Not in the least, no way, no how. Time and the lack of it... anyways. Recently I pulled it out to confirm some of my BIOS hacking suspicions and try to make some progress. I have managed to podge together an AMI BIOS thats damn compatible with this RM4100. Only MAJOR BIOS level issues is that the machine cant restart itself. I suspect its an ACPI issue, but this is fixed once an OS is installed. Wait... what?! You got an OS installed?! HOW! WHICH ONE!

[ WebTV 2 RM4100 installing Windows XP SP2 - Click image to link to my picasa page ]

Yes this is my livingroom, which has suffered from a severe bulimic episode from my lab. Now to the fine details:

Using Compact Flash cards which is already onboard, native Primary Master and bootable on the RM4100, and and IDE mod, I hooked in a regular optical drive which has been powered off a separate PSU for now. The RM4100 does in fact have pads for an IDE header for the Secondary IDE chain, and even a spot for a molex power connector. I just havent gotten around to activating it. You need to add a few through hole electrolytic capacitors to get the onboard molex working. I have it set up and going on another RM4100 I have. Granted pre-install of Windows XP with SP2 was painful being that the BIOS had forced the Compact Flash card into a very slow DMA Mode 2 which is a crippling 33MB/s. After post install and I had configured Win XP with some minor tweaks, the typical action of turning off themes, indexing, restore points, and useless animations, then proceeded to install the device drivers... it ran pretty god damn smooth! I was able to get the CF card into UDMA Mode 4 which is twice the transfer speed. Performance wise I wasnt impressed, but I was surprised at how smooth it was, despite how the CF card was bottlenecking the OS Speed.

Performance does not compare to your typical PC today, but for what its worth this thing was running very nice, smooth, I couldnt complain. Except the Compact Flash cards were not in the best shape and it crapped out on me over and over again. I was able to test a few theories.

• IR keyboard/Remote is hooked to a microcontroller on the PS/2 bus. You cant put PS/2 back in, but you can use the IR keyboard if you remap the keys using some extra software. The keyboard doesnt have a full set of needed keys (Like the F-Keys and Esc)
  
• The BIOS can not get the TV-Out working natively. VGA is needed to configure the BIOS
  
• I was not able to get the Intel Extended Graphics to detect a TV display, chances being there is no load balance for the transmission lines that are used to detect displays. I can not force TV out with the default drivers. The CF Card shit out before I could install an application that will force TV output, but my assumption is that if we force it, it will work, and the registers for TV out in the IEGD (Intel Extend Graphics Driver) will TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) letting the BIOS do TV out, granted you have the BIOS CMOS Battery in place to keep all the registers set. When I plugged in a display, it did detect a carrier sync signal, which means it IS spitting an output to the TV-Out!
  
• Sound is in fact muted on the hardware level. There are some specific registers that need to be set to desaturate a transistor that keeps the sound card in a hardware based mute mode. Drives are at full volume, but nothing comes out. Removal of transistor Q3002 on the board gets it working. Crude hardware hack but it works. I do not have the coding skills to set the proper registers on a driver level to unute via software, 3 seconds with my soldering iron is a lot easier for me
  

I made some decent progress, a lot of my assumptions were correct and my technical experience in internet appliances and embedded hacking hasnt failed me yet on this device. Unfortunately all of my Compact Flash cards are extremely unhealthy and do not provide a stable test environment for me. I have some parts on the way, so just stay patient with me and I will release as much as I can as often as I can. This device does show quite a bit of potential granted you know how to make the most out of your hardware.

WebDT 366, and beyond the stars.

Ive given up any hopes in hell to make a mating connector for my WebDT 366 IDE Flashrom Board, so I ripped out the 2mm pin header which is only half height. Surprisingly it was quite simple! Back breaking, tedious, and utterly mind-numbing, but I think many people can do it, granted they are comfortable with a soldering iron. Seeing how I had a busted IDE cable from previous attempts to get an IDE cable modded and working, I chose to solder the cable directly into the motherboard. Yeah... dont do that, major pain in the ass. You can easily install a normal height 2mm header so you can use a regular IDE cable. From there you can use almost any style IDE drive you want to use. ALMOST ANY IDE DRIVE!

The WebDT 366 IDE bus is limited to 3.3V drives, and no more than 350mA or so. I havent tested it exactly how much amperage it can handle. 300mA drives work fine, my CF cards are rated fr that, 500mA does not. Now we can "borrow" power from the USB port, but with my current direct-wire hookup, its not easy to disconnect the +3.3v lead from the board. After all, we dont want to directly hook something that can handle more voltage and amperage into the IDE +V line, now do we? NO! We do not! Of course the first thing that comes to mind is USB. Granted I think the USB on the WebDT is useless beyond text/mouse input, the dock does have some USB lines I will have a very unlikely chance of ever using. I can/will mod some of my IDE to CF afapters, and 44 pin to 1.8" IDE (aka iPod Drive) adapters so they directly take power off of the USB on the interna cradle connection, which leads to a 2mm pin header anyways. The mod will be pretty simple in general, granted you can grasp the general concept.


This is the general idea. Compact Flash drives work, but they are somewhat slow in PIO only modes. I used a 6GB microdrive that detected, but it drew 500mA (labeled on the drive itself) and I had major issues with what seemed to be random power brown-outs. Here is a stock install of XP Pro 2 with the themes pulled out, and some very minor optimizations. The OS still needs some work, but thats a matter of personal preference and wont really get into it.

Now for something kinda' cool. You may or may not know, I am into ham radio. Not the typical two fat fucks talking over a static repeater link about local news, weather, and bowel movements. There is a LOT more to the hobby. One of them being Slow Scan TV. Its is a method of encoding digital images into an analog signal and transmitting it over a radio carrier. Its like TV... but slower.. get it.. SLOW Scan TV (SSTV from herein).

SSTV was used on many space missions for imaging, and I am talking back in the 1960's. Technology has improved just a wee bit over the past few decades. Getting the hardware to get SSTV going isnt all too taxing in general. I loaded up MMHAMSOFT's SSTV software on my friend Ugster's WebDT, and on my laptop (for now, I dont have the right audio connectors) hooked into my Handheld Radios (HT Radio). One is a cheap $60 FD-460A 70Cm band (440Mhz) and the other is a Yaesu FT-60 dual band (google it). With some basic audio patch cables and software set up, we started sending some images.

The image is actually a macro shot of my eye using a Playstation 2 Eyetoy USB Webcam with drivers hacked to be used under windows, and a red LED for a backlight. The radio as stated is an FDC-460A

Why longer isnt always better.

I know I dont post often, I am sorry. I am not in the lifestyle of ending my adventures in the electronic wilderness with a post about it. I prefer to collect my thoughts and proceed with the next phase of progress. Which comes to mind, the RM4100 is not forgotten! It will be finish after I tie up some loose ends!

I have been fighting with my Web DT366 quite a bit, I enjoy this little fucker. Granted it has some handicaps when it comes to the USB, and inability to boot from onboard Compact Flash (herein referred to as CF) with the internal connector. This is what I have been up to

The one major crippling issue of the WebDT was its USB 1.1 to load an OS from, and the 512MB FlashROM Board. The USB 1.1 is totally useless to run a live OS distro, no matter how small it may be. Now I have tried and tried some more, using every tech trick inside my e-Hat to get a way t hook another drive to this bus so we can use a more enhanced OS. Im no looking for OSX or Vista, but something thats usable in general, and not so stripped down it barely does the task you want it to do, say... scan for wifi, map networks, control head for your home automation and A/V gear. This lil' buggar has alot of potential, but the lack of storage is a major Achelie's heel.

In essence this is a regular IDE bus, 44 pin header. But here is the catch, its half hight We cant plug into it with a regular connector, and I havent found one that could fit so far. Since my last post about the Web DT I have been corresponding with Molex, whom makes similar connectors. I thought I finally kicked the WebDT int the nuts and made it my subservient anime school-girl bitch. Molex was QUITE helpful for sending me countless samples oh pin headers to line up and get mated into this motherboard.

It turns out the motherboard uses a standard 44 pin ~ 2mm spacing on the PCB itself. This is a throughhole component, all the connectors I have are SMD, assuming the board was in fact - SMD - and here I am like a schmuck looking at this through-hole header. Sick of waiting, and with the essence of a hacker, I make due with what I have.

*I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE VERY GOOD SOLDERING SKILLS!! ~ YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!*

[PICS Will be added later]

I attempted to sand a 44 pin IDE Cable for laptops to be half height to fit over the connector. This failed because most of the pins did not make proper connection. This took a week of trial an error before it took a total nosedive into the utter end of total-fail! I cut the remaining connector off, which wasnt much by the time I was done by the end of the mod, to be left with a cable that had one working crimped 44 pin IDE end, and a nice length of ribbon cable.

I then spliced each wire, and then tinned them, prepping them to be soldered directly to the motherboard in the through-hole pads. Thing here is, however, there was already a connector in place. What I had done was *gently but firmly* clamp the board in place, then proceed to work. Using a typical 35W iron with decent tinned tip, I held it on the pad holding the pin, and with a pair tweezers (or other fine tipped tool for grabbing small tings) pulled the pin out. I pain painstakingly removed all 44 pins, then pulled the plastic layering off. No glue, it just popped right off with no issues. I cleaned up the remnant of solder that were in the through-holes with some cheap desolder braid. It was surprisingly easy! I didnt have a single issue with any of the through-hols at all. It was just very tedious and pain staking in my back and neck

The board is clearly marked Pin 1,2, 43, and 44 for reference, No Guesswork here! Always a plus! I prepped the IDE cable I destroyed, the header was gone from excessive sanding in shy hope of getting it to natively fit with the now missing connector. I pulled he wires apart a wee bit, spliced, and GENTLY pre-tinned them with solder. Sorry, no amazing pics there. Nothing too exciting to see, I got all the pins soldered in place as neatly as possible [Pics to come, next time I pull the DT apart].

Now here is the important part! The Web DT366 uses a through-hole 2mm pin header! It does NOT use a SMD or multilayer pin header. You can easily salvage or buy (or claim free sample) proper pin headers, and solder it in place, that is if you dont want to take the pain-mistaking long amount of back breaking work to get the IDE cable directly soldered in. I will order some proper headers from molex as soon as I can to mod my other DTs.

Now with any IDE cable or header mods done you will need mods done to the WebDT. This is one of many options. When I get the others completed (for friends) I will post results.

Now that we have a working IDE interface its time to get an OS installed. As previously stated in earlier posts, the WebDT can boot from USB Optical Drives, or USB Multboot. Now I have had more luck with the optical drives, but if you want to do the USB Multiboot method, by all means feel free to try. If you come into a 0x0000007b Blue Screen of Death Error, you have issues with the IDE Controller Drivers. Take nLite out for a date ad perhaps a nice movie and you will get lucky. Works for me. Still being you are installing whatever OS from USB 1.1, my case being XP Pro SP2 Corp', its going to take some time, so be patient. Of course there are some MAJOR optimizations to me made in the OS, and where to get proper OS drivers, but thats for another post.

Here are some critical findings about the IDE so far:

• Compact Flash (mine is 133x and says it supports IDE modes) only does PIO mode, which is VERY SLOW! It is comparable in speed to the onboard 512MB IDE FlashROM Board. Definitely not the fastest thing to be running an OS from,
  

• The IDE bus supplies a 3.3V line, with very low amperage. I have not measured (the amperage) it, but it gets into my next point.

• If you choose to use a Microdrive, although 44 pin to CF adapters exist, the WebDT IDE bus cant push out enough amperage to power the drive. It will detect, but encounter errors or IRQ conflicts (OS Dependant) during install. I am working on a fix for this, so you better brush up on your soldering skills!

• 1.8" IDE derives, or also known as 'iPod Hard Drives' or 'ZIF Hard Drives will give the same issue as microdrives, however...!
  

• The typical IDE chain runs at 5V, the 1.8" ZIF Drive runs at 3.3V. I had modified the adapter board replacing the onboard surface mount regulator with a bare wire (the small 4 pin black rectngle ting at the top of the board) allowing the WebDT 3.3V Rail to power the drive... again there is no way to get enough amperage to the HDD, and your OS will return an error. There is a fix for this that I will attempt. That is to snip the +V rail of the IDE pin on the male header of the drive adapter, and solder a wire to a known +5V source, perhaps some unused USB Bus ports un he WebDT 366 Dock. USB will give 5V at 500mA. More than enough to power the 1.8" HDD. The 5V though, not good... I will have to wire the 5V from USB into the onboard regulator, but disconnect the +V pin on the adapter header so we arent crossing the USB +5V line into the IDE +3.3V Line. Sounds hard, but it shouldnt be. Ill cut the physical pin on the header, remove it completely, then solder in the +5V needed that will be plugged into a very and utterly useless USB header on the bottom dock connection. As long as the new +5V line doesnt attach to the onboard IDE 3.3V rail, all will be well.
  

So far I have full non-nlite XP running from an 8GB x133 CF card with minimal tweaks.No Themes, running in classic mode, turned off Indexing, turned off Restore points. adjusted the Pagefile a bit, turns off all animations and graphical embellishments; although I did keep in Common tasks. Graphics, sound, touchpanel work, need to get my PCMCIA wifi card working,but thats the last on the list. I need to go and do tons of service patch updates and install my USB wifi cards, WiSpy, and other little doo-dats.... K-Melion, PUTTY, Kismet, inSSIDer, Channelizer, VLC, Winamp 2.7x, WinRar, nMap, audacity, Scanner Recorder... just to name a few.

I am not taking this Install too serious as I will be running nLite across this for a custom install in general, and I need to get better Penmount support, and the Button Agent working. Button Agent isnt exactly open and downloadable, so I need to get a copy...somewhere. Maybe a decent On Sceen Keyboard would cool, but I cant find any that dont blow. I have a bluetooth keyboard, perhaps, or maybe interface my Erickson Chat board into the unused serial port on the Motherbard... Or even a mini USB, I have a few of those. Would be nice to make a Chorded Keyboard wit Flexstrip sensor interface, but not I am going beyond the topic of this post.

Ill try and post more about my hobbies and general works more often, I promise.

WebTV RM4100 Update on the down-low

Turns out my suspicion of the Web TV's new BIOS Socket being the main cause for failure. I removed the socket and in the process it was utterly destroyed. I Soldered the original BIOS back in place and the unit is back to its regular function. I lost my two other programmed chips, but no worries, I have a few spares. I'm pretty sure the BIOS I am working on will be what we need to boot the unit as a PC, with a few missing features, but I think the OS and a little iron time will fix those.

So YAY! The WebTV 2 is back to life!

Im a slut, and you should be too

I have been doing my typical crap. I have made a lot of progress on the Web TV 2 work, unfortunately the day I decided to install a Windows XP OS on the Dev' unit I have been working on, the bastard decided it didnt want to boot anymore. Im assuming one of two things are wrong, either the BIOS PLCC Socket is bad, or the unit finally bit my hand after all of the solder work ive put it through. I have one more to fiddle with, and 5 more on the way. I was told two of the units are DOA, and three were store retail units, possibly developer units. I might be able to get all of them back to life.

Here are some pics of my progress.

As you can see I have made a bit of progress, and I have been taking my sweet time with it. Just wait, I will be done someday... I am also working on an LPC Flasher for people who dont have one. I just need a competent coder to help me with the software side of things, but one step at a time, eh?

I have also been working on OS Install methods. I wound up getting a good deal on an Asus EEE 900a. Its still running the stock shit xandros OS, but I plan on swapping out to XP Pro. I have been playing with USB multiboot, which allows you to boot from a USB Thumbdrive and install XP. Now, I could be sane and just use Windows XP Pro, but of course I am not. I have been toying with Windows XP Embedded and Windows XP Tablet Edition. Now before you start to bitch "OMFG Why Winblowze!!!" let me remind you that I am not an OS Fanboy. I am choosing Windows for now mainly because of popularity, ease of install, and tech experience level needed for any preliminary hacking. Remember I am doing this as much for myself as I am for other people. If I wanted to be selfish little slut that only thinks inward, I wouldnt be doing most of this work on the OS, posting my research, or explaining anything. I figured this tech-slut can share the info and hope to get others started. Perhaps I could even inspire someone to go beyond my work and do something I cant, which is really why I am doing this.

I also got my hands on a WebDT 366, an embedded tablet. Well, im a slut, so I got 4 of them. Granted 3 of them are for my friends and they are reimbursing me, it still give me a few extra to play with. Here is a little bit about the WebDT so far:

• AMD Geode GX 500Mhz CPU
• 512MB onboard FlashROM (some models have 1GB)
• 256MB DDR 200Mhz RAM
• PCMCIA (Used for Wifi)
• Compact Flash (used for... DUH!)
• USB 1.1 (the 800Mhz model does USB 2.0)
• Adjustable (max 16MB) onboard shared video
• Onboard Audio and Microphone with headphone jack
  
• Onboard Bluetooth
  
• Typical BIOS features
• Boots from USB, FlashROM, or Compact Flash

This is a recent toy, I have no pictures, and being the technophile I am I have too many projects going on at once. Not to mention I dont blog for shit unless I have to, so dont expect much news on the WebDT right now. So far it boots Windows CE 5 from FlashROM. I have been able to load the USB Multiboot XP Install to get an OS, but the 512MB of storage is very limiting. I need to get my hands on a bigger Compact Flash card. You can enter the BIOS setting by hitting the F1 key on a keyboard when it loads a pale blue screen. I just whail on it like a crack-head maniac. Once in the BIOS it has the typical features. The unit has already loaded a few live Linux distros for me from USB Thumbdrive, I have not had a chance to fix my USB CD-Rom drive but the WebDT can boot from it. Once I get some extra time I would like to backup the internal flashrom since I dont have a WinCE Restore Disc. Once a backup is made I will feel a little more comfortable playing with OS Installations. Yay for linux and the dd command!

It just doesnt stop!! I also got my hands on a pair of MyVue iPod LCD glasses. They are marketed strictly for iPods' however it has a typical 4 pin 3.5MM headphone hookup. They run 320x240, yeah, kinda' low rez, but they look pretty good. They are a lot smaller, lighter, and better quality than my last pair of LCD glasses. The one thing I like about them is the fact that they arent full-field. They dont obstruct your vision completely. They only take up the lower third of your field of vision. One thing I dont like is the design seems to be for someone thats 9 feet tall. The headset will need a headband strap to keep it from falling off my greasy face constantly. I got a damn good deal on them and to be honest I enjoy them. I plan on using them for a few wearable projects, including a smaller slim-line 2.4Ghz wireless Video Scanner currently being worked on.

This is my idea of getting ready for sleep....

Asus EEE - Where it went wrong

My buddy Mustang wanted an EEE PC, my other buddy was selling his for $150. Me acting as a middle man I was able to work the deal out, so I have had the honor to try out my hacky hands with this contraption. Its currently running a nice clean install of XP Pro Corporate. One thing that really pissed me off is that Asus sold this as a "Laptop for Hackers" but wont let you hack it. At first the violated the GPL License by not releasing proper drivers so you can install your on distribution of linux. They also made it so that replacing or upgrading the RAM or Solid State Hard Drive (SSHDD) voided the warranty. Thats really shitty! How can you tell me I will void my warrenty because I put more standard, off the shelf RAM in the unit? I can understand if I took the whole thing apart and took my soldering iron to the board, but to void it under the pretense that I replace standard hardware... fuck you. It seems they used "Linux Hacker" more as a marketing term than conforming to the Open Source sensibility of homebrew hackers and technophiles alike. This alone made me digress an EEE purchase.

Now, I like the size, but here are some minor gripes, besides the obvious maketing and licence blunders of the past:

• The touchpad is too small to be remotely useful.
• The 7" LCD isnt big enough to hold a typical GUI, even a slimmed down GUI.
  
• The keyboard is very hard to use without using the 'Hunt and peck' method.
• Battery... can we please have an official extended battery?

I like the SDHC, right now I have an 8GB card in there. I havent gone to installing linux to SD yet, or to a USB Drive, but with a little tech know-how its not hard at all. If you think GRUB is a type of bug, then you shouldnt even bother with an EEE. I have managed to BSOD the EEE within minutes of using it, but I just have that talent. Seeing how this isnt mine, I didnt really dig into it. Once mustang gets his paws on it, I will surely be by his side ready to sink my claws in.





For productivity, this thing is useless. The screen is too small to hold a standard formatted screen for text editing, and the keyboard is harder to use than a thorn covered butt plug. If you want it for generic mobile bullshit, its great! Add a beefed up wifi card and bluetooth stick, some nice linux software, and you could be a severe threat to anyone roaming the electronic frontier within the immediate area. Or just be a typical myspace/facebook whore... but beyond generic playing, which I must say, I do a lot, I wouldnt buy one at full price, and if I did get one, a 10" screen would be the best one to get if you can.

Once I get this off to mustang and we work on it a bit, I will post some more about the hellish hacks and misadventures of BSoD and friends.