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Home / Other I-Appliances / MSN Companion Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? Need plan for rescuing clipper

Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) codefrog Profile | Email I just got a blue IA-1/Clipper on Ebay from WasatchSales. It has onboard ethernet and a 32mb internal disk instead of the usual 16mb disk. Interesting to me was the main nav-screen which had "Your Company Presence Here" in the middle suggesting these were demo units to be sold to OEMers. Unfortunately it's also got the unhackable style BIOS. In its virgin state it recognized the external CF slot and in fact preferred to boot from that. 0. I made a backup of the original BeIA image. 1. I booted the El Torito slackware image from www.ia1hacking.com 2. I copied the El Torito image from HDC (external) to HDA (internal), removed the CF card, and rebooted 3. It booted the El Torito image... 4. I put the desired Midori image on the CF card, stuck it in and rebooted... 5. It booted off the Midori image rather unsuccessfully, since that was not on HDA. 6. I decided I had to change some BIOS settings - so I opened the box and paperclip-shorted the NVRAM reset pin briefly. -Now it boots from the internal drive but it won't recognize the 2nd CF card! Argh. So I can't get into BIOS setup. Resetting the NVRAM again results : it only 162's and resets the NVRAM to a chosen state, then reboots without me. Ideas? A. The NVRAM in its original state was happy to see and in fact boot the external drive. If only I hadn't wiped it. If anybody out there has one of these blue guys in the clean state that mine arrived in, it might be possible to read an image of the 'recognize, boot external' NVRAM state. Is there an easy way to write directly into the NVRAM? - just skip the BIOS setup screen and set the config bits directly? B. Is it possible to flash-reprogram the ATMEL bios chip (not the internal CF) without desoldering it? I have a white IA-1 which is of the 'hackable' variety, and a copy of that bios from somewhere online. So, a warning, anyway, if you have a new blue one you might NOT want to drain the NVRAM - I wish I hadn't - since mine was previously browsing with BeIA on the built-in ethernet and now won't do anything useful. Daniel 12-31-2002 23:43:08

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) TommyBoy69 Profile I have the same one as you. I also bought it from the same person... What can I help you with? 01-01-2003 10:54:20

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 1 times) haiqu Profile Hell. I have one of these and flashed the NVRAM months ago, complete with 162 message. It still boots the BeIA 1.0 image that was on the machine, but I sure hope I didn't screw the ability to boot off CF. I'll be experimenting with this today, and let you know how it goes. Fortunately, BeIA doesn't use much of the BIOS for device drivers so it may still work. Any chance of a copy of the image you saved? I'm trying to collect all variants. You could either post it for d/l somewhere or email me. haiqu http://voip.ob-wan.com 01-01-2003 20:08:17

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) haiqu Profile OK, here's the result: 1. Made a bootable CF with DR-DOS, added a few utils and images, and tested that it booted from my desktop machine. Cool so far. 2. Insert it into the Clipper. It didn't boot from the CF, but went straight into BeIA 1.0 - Merde! 3. Tried to boot the desktop machine into BeOS 5.0.3 and 5.1d0 with the CF inserted as IDE1 so that I could DD an image onto it. BeOS refused to boot. Putaine de merde!! I have no way to know whether this machine would have booted from CF before I cleared the BIOS, because I did that before the CF cards arrived. The result is, however, that I'm in the same boat as you. And have no idea how to get any further. The curious part is that dumb ol' DOS will recognise the CF as a HDD but BeOS won't. Maybe my only chance is to insert the CF adapter into a DOS box and dolly an image from there. But it probably still won't boot in the Clipper. <fx: *groan*> I'm off to BeBits to see if there's a CF driver about. Wish me luck. haiqu http://voip.ob-wan.com 01-01-2003 22:23:50

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) codefrog Profile | Email If you have a legitimate use for this 11mb zipped file (image from my virgin clipper) try www.codefrog.cx/clipper_beia.zip. Otherwise please don't tie up my DSL... What I'm thinking is this : get images of the NVRAM from A) A hackable IA-1, configured as a0) disabled IDE's a1) see all IDE's, boot internal first a2) see all IDE's, boot internal second From this we might be able to diff and figure out the important bits to write changed information to the unhackables without having to go thru the inaccessible BIOS setup. (Is the NVRAM checksummed?) B) An unhackable clipper still configured as mine was originally (before I wiped it) With this image we could theoretically re-write the whole NVRAM to a useful state. To get this, one would have to set up a bootable CF card with an NVRAM reader on it. (Dos, Linux, whatever) Also I would like to get an image of the UNhackable BIOS, for disassembly purposes. (find the damn secret access key!) I've got a copy of the BIOS from the hackable system, but I don't know if it's an external image or an internal image. By this I mean - was the image read from the CPU of the system, or from a chip that had been desoldered and put into a chip-reader? -- since I think they could be different images, if say the data lines were wired oddly. (Old coin-op machines used to do this kind of thing for added 'security') I'm not up to speed on actually reading/writing either the NVRAM or the BIOS chips, but I see there are Linux devices /dev/nvram and /dev/bios that people have put together - if you have the knowhow and the proper system in your hands let me know. contact address 'appliance' at domain 'codefrog.cx' 01-01-2003 23:43:29

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 1 times) haiqu Profile Some further work reveals the following: 1. There is no CF driver for the BeOS. 2. With the type of adapter I have (CF drive attached to IDE bus as first slave) you _can_ get BeOS to boot, but it requires going into safe boot screen - hitting F1 when the logo first appears - then setting IDE DMA to OFF. This dramatically slow down all HDD access but does allow read/write to the CF card. 3. I have now transferred both Airman's images to CF and cannot mount them from within the BeOS. This means they are either encrypted or the copy process he used was faulty. Either is possible, reading the BeIA specs says that zipping and encryption is used. 4. Images created from the BeIA devkit don't boot either, but at least I can mount them as CFS partitions from within BeOS and read/write them on the desktop machine. My biggest problem here is that I'm totally locked out of the Clipper, and have the stone-age BeIA 1.0 version on it. The only chance may be to remove either the NVRAM or DoC and reprogram them. I have the skills for this but not the necessary equipment; adapters for SM chips are rare and I certainly don't have them for my programmer. Nor do I possess SM desoldering gear here, I'd have to find someone who would let me use theirs. Finally, without a known good image of either (and don't forget, there are no reports of Airman's images having been used successfully as yet) I'd still be guessing. Hmmm. It gets tricky, doesn't it. Codefrog, can you get to the terminal or use any kind of networking from your current Slackware image in the Clipper? If so you may be able to hack your way out of this mess. But short of a breakthrough, looks like I'm dead here. haiqu http://voip.ob-wan.com 01-02-2003 03:12:24

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 1 times) haiqu Profile Codefrog, Extracting to "D:\Hardware\IA-1\BeIA\" Use Path: yes Overlay Files: no warning [D:\Hardware\IA-1\BeIA©lipper_beia.zip]: extra 42052 bytes at beginning or within Zip file (attempting to process anyway) Error in file #1: bad Zip file offset (Error local header signature not found): 0 (attempting to re-compensate) Extracting clipper_beia.img Error: invalid compressed data to inflate Similar result trying to unpack from BeOS. :( haiqu http://voip.ob-wan.com 01-02-2003 04:09:23

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 2 times) haiqu Profile Tried a new approach. Pulled the unit apart again hoping to find a jTag header. These are used to write firmware to on-board chips after parts have been surface mounted. No such luck. There's a connector pad CN10 in about the right place, but it has too many pins and they're too close together. So I tried clearing the NVRAM again, this time while a bootable CF was inserted, but that didn't help either. Same old "162 - System options not set" error. If only Be, Inc still ran their website ... I know exactly where the valid image used to live and could reload it across the internet. Bugger. haiqu http://voip.ob-wan.com 01-02-2003 08:06:59

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) codefrog Profile | Email Hm. The file was zipped with WinZip... Look in http://www.codefrog.cx/clipper/ for (pick your favorite) http://www.codefrog.cx/clipper/clipper_beia.img http://www.codefrog.cx/clipper/clipper_beia.zip http://www.codefrog.cx/clipper/clipper_beia.tar http://www.codefrog.cx/clipper/clipper_beia.img.bz2 http://www.codefrog.cx/clipper/clipper_beia.tar.bz2 01-02-2003 13:41:50

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) radarman Profile I still have a "virgin" clipper, and I can reliably boot a microdrive, so I'm going to try the Award flasher utility. Not sure how this is going to work - I've only used "branded" flashers up till now - but if it will keep me from having to remove the BIOS, it will be worth it. There is no reason I can see why it shouldn't work... (famous last words) I'm a tad worried about the drive crapping out during the write, so I may go ahead and solder a jumper to +5 to keep the microdrive happy. If it doesn't go, I'll have to try and talk the technician where I work into socketing the part. (I've had two white IA-1's worked on successfully) Now if I can just get FreeBSD to recognize the ethernet PHY... 01-02-2003 16:41:20

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 3 times) haiqu Profile radarman, It's possible but iffy. I looked at the spec sheet for the AT49F002(N)T last night and it has protected areas of memory. They also need >5.5volts to be reprogrammed, so it will never be an in-circuit reprogramming job unless CN10 can be utilised. I think removal/socketing is the only viable solution here. Once you get an image, check it against the other hackable bios online at http://thinker.falcons2000.com/ia1/ipaq_bios.bin haiqu http://voip.ob-wan.com 01-02-2003 17:48:07

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) Carbon Profile | Email codefrog: I checked out your image and it is a 16 meg image on a 32 meg chip with only about 9 meg or so used. It appears to be a release image in that someone has run make_release_image on it (not surprising). I can't use alt-q to get to a beos desktop, but it does boot and run for me. I do have an image here that is almost identical but has not had make_release_image run on it so you can still modify it somewhat. This may be one of the images on the ia1hacking.com website but I've renamed my images and I don't know which one it is. Thanks for posting the image. Carbon 01-02-2003 17:57:01

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) haiqu Profile codefrog, You might want to try unpacking those locally. The tar.bz2 also failed with a corruption message. If they're OK then the network end of things is being silly, but if not I'd be running ram tests and virus scanners asap. haiqu http://voip.ob-wan.com 01-02-2003 18:29:27

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) radarman Profile Hmm, that's interesting. My clipper has the SST 39SF020A device, which claims to be in-circuit programmable. Perhaps they switched vendors along the line? Unfortunately, I turned on the memory test, and now I can't get back into the BIOS to check the date of manufacture, though it still boots from the CF slot. 01-02-2003 19:13:53

RE:Ideas on Clipper / IA-1 ? (modified 0 times) radarman Profile OK, that didn't go so well. Fortunately, I wasn't so bold as to attempt to PROGRAM the flash, so I can still boot. Unfortunately, the awdflash program blew up every time I tried to save out the BIOS. I'm too cautious to attempt a flash, at least with this utility. I am using awdflash version 7.3 How were the current IA-1 BIOS images obtained? 01-02-2003 20:09:06

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