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Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) NarShadda Profile I've seen references to the early 1.0 versions having a joystick. I have a newer 2.0 version and it is missing the joystick port. Does anyone know if the board design changed between these versions? Does the port still exist in 2.0, but the connector is just missing? If so, where can I connect it and what's the pinout? Also, does anyone have old ISO's for BIOS updates and OS versions? I have 2.0.9. ThinkNIC's download section has a broken link for 2.0.28, but browsing the directory shows an ISO for 3.0 which I've burned and booted. I'd like to get a collection of the various versions of the OS they've had. Yes, I know it's a waste of time... ;) NarShadda 04-12-2003 05:33:46

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) mrdensity Profile | Email I'm not certain, If mine is a Nic 2 It did come (used) with the ver2.0 cdrom. It does have the Game/Joystick port directly above the 3 audio ports. The Serial # makes me think it might be a version 1. It is NIC108000006xx, I x'ed the last 2 digits. I dont have a camera to post board images but would try to provide any information I can about board layout and parts locations. The only unpopulated headers on mine seem to be a missing "RCA" port labeled "CN2" next to the 1/8th inch audio connections and (I think) an infrared header , directly 'behind' the RCA port. To the left of the CN2 location is "v3.1A" silkscreened on the board next to the mounting screw. I have the 2.0.28-122801.ISO , it is 154,912,768 bytes (147 megs) I have booted from it a few times in the past and did get another computer to boot and work from it, so I can be pertty certain that it is a good DL. Drop a email to me from my profile, include Linux in the Subject line and it will get dropped in my box. I will try to work out some way to get it to you. It easily fits on a minidisk and seems to work faster than my original 2.0 (fullsized) disk from ThinkNic. Well cheers ! 04-13-2003 12:21:06

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) NarShadda Profile You know, I must be blind. Right behind the audio jacks is a set of 15 pad arranged in a sub-D shape that are plainly marked GAME1. I'm guessing they used some kind of right angle jack that rises above the audio jacks and essentially hides them when the board is looked at from above. I'll have to try wiring this up and see if it works. As far as board revision, mine also says V3.1A. Unpopulated headers on mine are: 1. The aforementioned CN2 which is presumed to be an RCA out maybe for video. 2. The 7-pin header (two rows of 4 with one missing) labeled JP4 just in front of CN2. What leads you to believe that this is an IR-header? That's a possibility as is a serial connector (or both). 3. A two pin jack between the piezo speaker and the audio jacks. It looks like this is labeled J-SPK. Based on that and its location, I'm guessing it's a jack for an external speaker. 4. Immediately to the right of the Ethernet jack are pads for a 4-pin header labeled JP8. 5. Just to the left of the IDE header is a 2-pin header labeled J3. 6. There is a similar header to J3 labeled J4 in the front right corner of the board near the RAM. 7. Two sets of 28-pads labeled PJP1 and PJP2 immediately in front of and behind the BIOS chip respectively. I was originally thinking maybe a floppy, until I counted the pins. A floppy header is 34 pins. No clue on these. 8. Immediately in front of the CPU is a set of six pins labeled JP1. Unknown. Maybe something to do with the bus speed? It think the multiplier and voltage are set in the BIOS, so that's the only thing I can think of. These might also possibly be connectors for external LED's like Turbo, etc. similar to JP2. The following, while not unpopulated, are still somewhat mysterious as I've not seen them mentioned anywhere. 1. Immediately to the right of the power connector is a single 2-pin header which is jumpered. It's labeled JP2. 2. A 3-pin header to the right of the CPU labeled JP7. The back 2 pins are jumpered. Again, maybe bus speed selection? 3. Immediately in front of the aforementioned JP1 is JP2. The center pair of pins is connected to the Power LED on the front of the case. I'm guessing some of the other pins are things like an IDE LED, etc. Any ideas? That does it for the main board. The modem daughterboard has a set of 8 pads for a header labeled J2 right next to the 16-pin header JP1. Also, any idea what the round hole in the modem panel is? The serial number on my board is NIC204010003XX. I suppose some of this might have been covered in the ThinkNIC Yahoo groups which Yahoo closed earlier this year, but since that info is now inaccessible... :( 04-13-2003 22:01:27

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) mrdensity Profile | Email Who knows what they had in mind as they were being built. The audio and game connector are one piece. I see a Think-Nic on ebay that has an isa slot , or so the ad says. AS well as having 2 72 pin slots for memory. The auction ends Apr-25-03 15:58:34 PDT . It is listed at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2724046567 The look of the back is a lot different than the one I own. From the sounds of things we have the same board in the 2 machines. After closer looking I did have more than I first thought. 1 - Video - that WOULD be nice ! I'll have to put a scope on it to check for video sync pulse. :) 2 - Possible FIR (Fast InfraRed), an older P2 MMx board I have has 2 of these connectors one serial the other is FIR/serial(BIOS selectable) 3 - Same here. 4 - Same here. 5 - Same here. 6 - Same here. 7 - I thought floppy too at first glance, but am wondering about ISA or maybe just upgrade memory for the ROM. I have seen a memory expansion module for a video card that reminded me of this. Will have to look in to the possibility of ISA. 8 - Same here. 1 \ maybe voltage adjust for CPU 2 > Same 3 / HDD indicator sounds good to me :) modem card - I don't have a round hole in this board. But the pads are there but seem to be directly connected to the data lines from the 16 pin header. Possibly to use the same modem in a different machine. Somehow when I wrote this it sounded much more coherant and much less like my previous ramblings. 04-22-2003 18:45:02

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) NarShadda Profile Yes, you've outbid me on the last several auctions I've had on eBay. ;) I had one that ended on Easter Sunday and I had it for $31 until 3 seconds before the end of the auction... :( Anyway, I've flashed my NIC's CD-ROM drive to be a slave and added in a 4.3gig drive on which I've installed Windows 2000 Server. It actually runs better than I expected in the 64M of memory the NIC comes default with. I have a 128M stick of TinyBGA SDRAM on the way, so it will be upgraded soon. I was going to try to install Citrix 1.8 on this to try it with a Telos MobilePad I picked up on eBay, but Citrix errors out on install with something like "There was an error checking disk space requirements." I have 3G free and Citrix only takes up about 50M of space. I guess I'll have to go back to Windows NT 4.0, Terminal Server Edition and try Citrix on it. I need another ThinkNIC to play with. I have a bid on that one on eBay you mentioned with the ISA slot and 2 RAM slots. I also saw one guy listing the processor as 166 instead of 266, so I'm not sure if these people are mistaken or not. The guy who listed the MobilePad said that Windows CE could be installed... I've not seen any info to that effect on the web. I did find plenty of references to the "next generation" of the CruisePad/MobilePad (CruisePad NXT, etc.) that was supposed to be based on Windows CE, so it's probably just mis-information. Also, as to your suggestion that the jumpers near the CPU are voltage, I think that's unlikely since the voltage and multiplier are set in the BIOS. They might be for FSB selection, though. I'm not sure. Anyway, I've got a new toy: the Acer NT-150. Imagine my surprise when I saw it branded with the same logo as on the NIC... ;) I'm typing this on it right now. I just did the simple registry hack to get online and will probably do some hardware hacks later. I'm amazed by the similarity of this to the AOLTV box. Maybe this will help me hack that one as well. Well, adios, for now... ;) NarShadda 04-24-2003 23:05:30

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) mrdensity Profile | Email Well, ... it wasnt intentionally against you. I am just ready to get things started again with mine that quit. My wife says we "need" to set her grandma up with a computer so they can IM/ mail each other on a regular basis. Grandma lives 1200 miles away. So If I set her up with something it HAS to be bullet proof. Turn it on and it just flat works! I told my wife I would but that it wasnt going to be Windows, of any kind. Boy, the turmoil that caused! She thought I just wanted to put Linux on one more computer. I had to explain that AOL doesnt work with Linux and G'mas grandson couldnt use it to dial up AOL (long distance) and run up her bill. Finally she consented. As it turns out each of us bid on 2 separate machines and won them both. She liked the flat moniter and got it. I had a monitor to send so I got the first one of the 2. The first replacement was won over a month ago but there was a problem with it and is being resolved. Now it to is supposed to be nearly ready for delivery. That will make 4 total. I think I'm done looking at them for the time being. Maybe with with 3 working I can figure out why my first one died. If not, it does have the a 266 Processor. The one going to grandma's house will get an upgrade if they are only 166's. Let me know how the memory upgrade turns out. It looks like I might have a little tinkering to do before summer gets here and we go on a trip with one as a surprise. Did the 2.0.28.iso work out for you? I dont know if you got the mail from me after I made a couple of local FS changes. I dont know why I dont spell so hot! Sorry! it should be fixed now. I'm looking foward to getting one set up for me. I have a 4 gig 2.5" drive and a laptop cdrw burner just waiting to get put to use. The cdrw is getting donated by my GateWay laptop. It came withoout software and the software I do have doesnt recognise it. I figure eroaster is worth a shot. Did you get the bid on that one I mentioned? Somewhere I saw/read the ISA slot was used for the nic card. I didnt remember him mentioning it having ethernet. I figure the card was pulled at somepoint but shouldnt impossible to replace with a low profile card of sometype. To bad Citrix errored out like that. You might need more ram to get it to install. 64 megs might be a little light for the job. Or something odd with disk quotas if it is NTFS partition. Good Luck ! Later , Aaron Griesel Somehow when I wrote this it sounded much more coherant and much less like my previous ramblings. 04-26-2003 00:17:25

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) NarShadda Profile I had started a reply to this using my NT-150, then I wiped out the whole thing and couldn't find an undo, so here goes again from the Windoze machine. :) I have worked out a deal on one of the supposedly ISA ones with a missing NIC. I'll have to see what this thing is. Since you've got several, let me know if you end up with too many. (Is there any such thing? My wife thinks so...) ;) As far as upgrading the processor, you'll need the older BIOS I provided a link to in order to change the multiplier. It's undocumented, but if you set the multiplier to 2x on a K6/2 or above, the K6/2 interprets that as a 6x multiplier, so you can get a K6/2 or K6/3 (regular or plus) running at 400MHz max by setting it to 2x. Regarding the memory upgrade. As I mentioned previously, I installed Windows 2000 Server on mine awaiting the memory upgrade. To see if the memory was the problem with Citrix, I tried that same 256MB DIMM from one of my other machines. This was the same 256MB DIMM that would let NICOS 2.0.9 boot about halfway, clear the screen and hang, and let NICOS 3.0 and DemoLinux 3.0 boot halfway, clear the screen and continue booting with no video. Oddly enough, Windows 2000 Server booted and ran fine on this 256MB stick... It might even be something related to the older version of the BIOS. I'm still waiting on my 128MB TinyBGA DIMM to upgrade it "permanently" to 128MB. I'd love to go to 512MB if this thing will support such a large DIMM. I've not tried that large of a DIMM on ANY of my machines because I've heard there were problems with a lot of older machines recognizing them. I did get the 2.0.28 iso, but have not been able to test it since I've modified my NIC beyond its original functionality. I need another stock one to play with. :) I did get the mail, but have been swamped looking for a job. Pay the rent or hack? hmm... ;) Anyway, I'm certainly interested to see this strange ISA NIC with no Ethernet card since the Ethernet is integrated on the motherboard on the one I have... NarShadda 04-30-2003 00:14:05

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) mrdensity Profile | Email I currently have only 1 (wont boot). It is a newer version. It appears to be the same as the others I have won on eBay. I have 3 others, won on eBay, that havent yet arrived. One of those three developed trouble after the item was won. It's powersupply failed during final testing to confirm working operation before being shipped. Supposedly it is being repaired, I look foward to getting it, finally.It was advertised as having the laptop drive adapter board installed (sans drive). I havent seen one that has the ISA slot but suspect it to either be an early version or possibly a NT-150 box. I seem to remember someone mentioning that they had one with the Think Nic branding on it. "Pay the rent or hack ? " I know which I would rather do ! but I know which one I must do too. :) I hope you can find something that pays the bills and isnt a horrible mundane Just Over Broke. The only thing I have at the moment that will boot the Think Nic OS cd is a pentium 166 PC that the kids use for school related internet searches. It isnt fast but it has 500 megs of storage for bookmarks and saved pages. I used a mini-cd to burn the iso to and that seems to help speed up the access time to /dev/hda. I guess there might be a point when you can have too many PC's. I havent foiund it yet but wives do seem to get in the way of new purchases. "Where are you going to put THAT!?!" "Just exactly what are you going to do with ANOTHER one!!!" "OK, and how much did you spend on THIS one?!?" "OKay, but now I get to buy something useless and expensive." "Something HAS to GO!" Yip, they just dont see it as we do. But then that might just be a good thing. Other wise we might have a hard time getting around even bigger stacks of stuff we seldom use but hasn't entirely lost it's usefulness. :) Later, Aaron Griesel Somehow when I wrote this it sounded much more coherant and much less like my previous ramblings. 05-01-2003 19:31:34

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) NarShadda Profile Mr. Density, Presumably by now you have gotten your "mystery" ISA NIC with no ethernet card and have realized that it isn't an early model ThinkNIC. It is actually a co-branded NIC/Uniden NC-1000/UX-101. For the benefit of the other hackers here, I'm posting what I've found about it in case it might be useful. This info came from http://homepage2.nifty.com/BYM04635/nc1000/ which is in Japanese, but has SOME English text. Here are specs I found on it: CPU :Cyrix Gx86(133MHz) MEM :64MB(72pin EDO SIMM) (Mine only has 32MB) VGA :VRAM 2MB / XGA & SVGA & VGA:65kcolor (Mine is an S3 Aurora 64V+) AUDIO :Sound Blaster Pro compatible (BIOS lets you pick SB16 or SBPro) I/F :Mon. Analog RGB D-sub 15pin x1 K/B PS/2 DIN 6pin x1 MOUSE PS/2 DIN 6pin x1 Seri. D-sub 9pin x1 Para. Centronics conformity D-sub 25pin x1 Sound Mic In,Line In,Line Out LAN 10Base-T (Mine is some kind of PCNet. Win2K's Network Monitor identified it as a Broadcom MAC address.) SmartCard:Smart card reader built-in OS :NC Desktop 2.2 POWER :AC 90~264V 47~63Hz WxDxH :53x227x290mm WEIGHT :about 2.9kg It does not have a hard drive and attempts to boot from the network (via BOOTP). If you open it up, it has a bracket inside to mount a 3.5" hard drive. It also has the IDE connector and power connector. I hooked up a drive and disabled the boot PROM in the BIOS and was able to boot DOS fine. It looks like the bracket is also made to support other options besides the SmartCard reader. It looks like a floppy would fit fine and the site I mentioned above says there is a ribbon cable to connect the floppy. He shows using a laptop CD-ROM and a laptop hard drive mounted where the SmartCard reader is. He also added NIC and HDD LED's although I'm not sure which is which. Memory is upgradeable (2 72-pin SIMMS), but the processor is not. COM1 comes out the back and it appears that the SmartCard reader may also be on COM1. There are two additional connectors that may be serial ports. I need to try to install Win98 on this and see what it finds. :) NarShadda 05-07-2003 18:38:37

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) mrdensity Profile | Email All the Thinknics I have are all nearly identical "Version 2's". I am about maxed out for space at the moment and am NOT looking to get one with the ISA slot. I didnt mean to imply that I had one of these older machine. Sorry for any confusion. I did finally burn the newest TN .iso with Mozilla. I actually liked it quite well. It seems to have a rxvt item on the "desktop" after the web browser in minimised. Ther is no need to boot with another rescue disk to add this feature as there is in ver 2.0 . I did get a couple of the "Student Disks" ver 2.1 with AbiWord installed and much better interface for external storage. Including smb-shares. The iso I had prevciously (2.0.28.iso) seeems to be nearly identical to what is located on the Student Disk. The bookmarks are about all that seems to be configurable for theese iso's as they seem more for a much more "hostile" enviroment. Or at least one that puts a lot greater restrictions on what is and isnot allowed to be preformed by the current user. Thanks for sharing the information about the co-branded unit. That information will be usefull at some point. Especially since it appears to be ThinkNic at first glance, if they user hasnt seem but just the one. :) Later, and Happy Hardware Hacking Aaron Somehow when I wrote this it sounded much more coherant and much less like my previous ramblings. 05-12-2003 11:44:24

RE:Different Versions and older ISO's (modified 0 times) Funderbunk Profile "The following, while not unpopulated, are still somewhat mysterious as I've not seen them mentioned anywhere. 1. Immediately to the right of the power connector is a single 2-pin header which is jumpered. It's labeled JP2. 2. A 3-pin header to the right of the CPU labeled JP7. The back 2 pins are jumpered. Again, maybe bus speed selection? 3. Immediately in front of the aforementioned JP1 is JP2. The center pair of pins is connected to the Power LED on the front of the case. I'm guessing some of the other pins are things like an IDE LED, etc. Any ideas?" Well, I know this forum seems to be quite dead, but what the heck - I'll share the info anyway. The data I have for the jumpers is: J2 is the LAN Enable/Disable jumper. Short pins 1-2 to enable. JP7 is used to clear CMOS memory. Normally pins 1-2 are shorted. Short 2-3 instead to clear CMOS. JP2 is used to connect to the outside world: pins 1-2 are the suspend switch, 3-4 are the reset switch, 5-6 are the power LED, 7-8 are the HDD LED and 9-10 are the LAN-Link LED. 04-23-2004 19:13:37

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