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Home / Other I-Appliances / Philips/AOL-TV BIOS version and other details BIOS version and other details

BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile Just recieved mine today from Amazon.com The IR keyboard is not emulated as a keyboard. I was unable to use it while booted into DOS. Everything I was able to glean had to be done via autoexec.bat. There is a four pin connector on the MOBO. Could this be for a keyboard? DOS 6.2 MSD reports the following: BIOS: PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0p (dated 12/17/99) Memory: with himem.sys loaded, it is only showing 6976k of XMS which would lead me to believe the machine only has 8 MB of RAM. Interesting, though is that it reports 65535k (i.e. 64MB) of extended memory. Hard disk is 5.1 gig. Processor is reported as 486DX. Not sure where the NS processors in these machines fall. Perhaps MSD is too old to properly report the newer chips. 3 com ports are reported. I'm guessing that one of these is the IR controller. Video is Cyberpro 5005. Drivers are supposedly included with win98. Otherwise, they can be downloaded from www.gctglobal.com. Haven't tried them, though. Not much of the disk is being used. Was able to compress the contents down to < 14 MB with gzip -9. If you hose up your disk, the BIOS will detect and dialout and refresh your disk. Takes awhile though. If you boot the machine up, you can configure for your own ISP it appears. Press Ctrl-Alt-Mute to get into setup (this is not the BIOS). Advanced setup can be gotten into using the password nixel. This information was gleaned from NT-150 discussion board and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stbhackers. It works here as well. If anyone has a better (read: more up-to-date) DOS based tool for reporting hardware config info, let me know and I'll try it out. 01-02-2002 23:14:55

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile I was right about the four pin connector for being for the keyboard. If you'd like to connect a regular keyboard (which you'll need to install another OS), the pinout is as follows: 1 => KBDAT 2 => GND 3 => KBDCLK 4 => +5V I was able to install win98 without two much difficulty. It did not detect the CX5530 or the Cyberpro 5005. I used the drivers from the HowTo section on www.gctglobal.com. Win98 confirms that there is only 8MB in the machine. Don't forget to use the /nm switch when running setup. There are two devices indicating no driver in the device manager. One of them is an audio device. I forget the other. The IR keyboard doesn't work yet. Still trying to figure that one out. 01-03-2002 09:41:56

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile as an update, according to the pci ids, the unidentified audio device is made by igs (makers of the cyberpro video chip). This is interesting because the cyberpro 5005 does not have audio. the cyberpro 5050 and 5055 do. haven't found drivers to make this work, but the audio outputs on the back of the box require this to be operational. Linux has support for cyberpro audio and it appears that QNX may as well. 01-06-2002 16:59:19

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile There is a spot near the video RAM on the mother board where a 6 pin connector is missing. It appears that you could use this to attach a VGA monitor. Pin out: 1 => B 2 => G 3 => R 4 => GND 5 => HSYNC 6 => VSYNC Have actually tried it yet, but the pins are attached to corresponding outputs on the cyberpro 5005. Also, it appears that F2 is they key to get into the BIOS. If you hold down the F2 key while booting, the system displays (entering setup) at the bottom of the display. it doesn't actually enter. it just prints that out and continues on it's merry way. According to the discussions regarding the Acer NT-150 at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stbhackers, the BIOS only works if a monitor is attached. Not sure, but it may be required in the case as well. 01-07-2002 10:28:06

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) kNiTe_oWl Profile First of all, great work. Now if only mine would get here. So far, it seems like there is some potential for this thing at least. 01-07-2002 11:07:35

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile bad news! I've got a VGA monitor connected. Either the pinout I posted earlier or my solder job got things confused. It may be that the R and B pins need to be reversed as well as the HSYNC and VSYNC. Not sure. Monitor is running and I switched my H and V synchs already. Blues are red and vice versa. Having a monitor attached does not get me any closer to getting into the BIOS. You can still see Entering setup flash by, but the system just whizzes on by. 01-08-2002 21:11:11

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) kNiTe_oWl Profile mevanson, did you have problems getting win98 to come up on your. It would install, but when I get to the last reboot, I would just get a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left and nothing. If I put the driver in a pc, it works just fine. So far, DOS works fine. I will probablly give Linux a try. I have Darth Vader Revision C if that makes a difference. 01-12-2002 18:11:37

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile knite_owl, sorry for the delay. I could swear I had posted a response earlier this week. On the first reboot during win98 install, the box does indeed hang. I simply press the reset button on the back to force it to continue. Additionally, during the hardware scan portion of win98 install it hangs and I had to force a reboot as well. things continue ok after the box comes back up. BTW, i've been using a vga connector for awhile. you the Red and Blue pinout indeed are the opposite of what I listed previously. 01-17-2002 19:15:54

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) kNiTe_oWl Profile Thank you, I will give that a try later. I haven't spent the time to solder the header or cables into the system yet, but will probablly do that later. The picture quailty on the TV and through my capture card sucks, so fuzzy right now. Sometimes I forget if I have my glasses on or off ;) Pin out: 1 => R 2 => G 3 => B 4 => GND 5 => HSYNC 6 => VSYNC Is this the correct on, or did you have to change the H and V Sync also? 01-18-2002 16:08:17

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) kNiTe_oWl Profile I was able to dump out the BIOS to a file and have started going through it, but nothing special yet. I did notice in the spec for the BIOS that if a USB floppy was attached it would automatically boot from there as drive A: I don't have a USB Floppy, so I can't try yet, but if someone has one and can test this out, it would be great to get the results. When I installed Linux on the HD and put in on the machine, it does look like it is searching for a floppy on the USB, so perhaps if it does work, it will make life a little easier. 01-18-2002 16:15:02

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile knite_owl, I'll have to get back you on the exact pinout. I do think that the hsync and vsync were reversed as well. I'll verify and then create a new thread for pinouts so that folks don't get mislead by the early details in this thread. I've also taken a look at the BIOS without much luck. I did find a Phoenix BIOS decompressor. It can list and extract modules much like the cbrom utils for the award bios. If I list the modules in the BIOS for the aol-tv and compare it to the modules in another BIOS, I find that we are missing a module named Editor. I assume the "Editor" module is the module used to support configuration. Unfortunately the decompressor I found cannot insert modules into the BIOS, it can only extract. Otherwise, I'd try placing the editor module from another BIOS into this one. The util is from Germany and as such, I'm having a difficult time following the sources. I was hoping to see if there was enough information to build insertion support. There are actually two decompressors that I've found. One includes the source and seems to work better. The other one does not seem to properly decompress the "Strings" module as you cannot see any strings in the resulting output. The one without source (which doesn't handle the strings properly) is available from: http://biosgfx.euro.ru/phoenixdeco/ The other is at: http://www-user.tu-cottbus.de/~kannegv/programm/phoedeco.arj The source is at: http://www-user.tu-cottbus.de/~kannegv/quelle/phoedeco.arj To build with the pascal source, you will also need: http://www-user.tu-cottbus.de/~kannegv/quelle/mkdir2.arj http://www-user.tu-cottbus.de/~kannegv/quelle/sprache2.arj http://www-user.tu-cottbus.de/~kannegv/quelle/lzh5x.arj 01-20-2002 11:42:25

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile BTW, the BIOS decompression util is written in Pascal. To build it, you need the FREE virtual pascal compiler from http://www.vpascal.com 01-20-2002 13:40:49

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) TempestII Profile Tried booting from a USB floppy lastnight...no luck. Plugged in a USB ethernet adapter and it didn't seem to power it up. By the way to get into setup it's "Ctl-Shift-Mute". Has anyone tried flashing the BIOS w/a version for the Acer? 08-23-2002 06:53:54

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) kNiTe_oWl Profile Have never tried flashing the BIOS with the ACER one yet. For some reason I didn't think about that. If I get some time, I may give that a try. In the process of getting into the BIOS, I ended up trashing the BIOS. Luckly they put a recovery option on this thing. An added bonus (I think) is that in the process of recovering from the corrupt BIOS, I ended up with a newer version of the BIOS than what was originally installed. Too bad, it still won't allow me to get anything running on it except DOS and Win31. More work to be done. kNiTe-oWl 08-23-2002 14:15:51

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) bizcoach Profile Has anyone gotten aol's operating system to recognize ethernet? Using the Ctl-Shift-Mute and Nixel gets you to some settings that include a choice for modem vs ethernet. Does this work? If so, what modem and what method (PCI vs USB) did you use to access? Also, has anyone mapped directory structure of the aol configuration? Is it accessible through the browser using the 'local' domain? Biz 03-04-2003 22:23:36

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) TempestII Profile Check this thread for info on the NIC http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=aoltv&Post=31&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=0&Session= Chris 03-08-2003 15:47:01

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) msquared Profile mevanson, kNiTe_oWl, other "Senior level" hacker folks. Please email me. I have some information about the AOL-TV BOX. kmhome@knology.net 04-07-2003 16:27:08

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) jsmmd Profile Just post it here. 04-11-2003 10:29:43

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) mevanson Profile I'd agree with jsmmd. Can't see any reason why you couldn't just post the information here. That's the whole point of this board: sharing information. 04-12-2003 10:22:13

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) msquared Profile I can't post the information here. Give me a email yell and I will fill you in on the details. Msquared kmhome@knology.net 04-13-2003 12:58:27

RE:BIOS version and other details (modified 0 times) zeropanic Profile I would have to concur- Nothing is too precious to post here. There are plenty of people (myself included) who are new at hacking this device. Let us all take part in the commonwealth of information so that we can get a near 100% usable hack. One for all and all for one, thats the motto of group, no? 04-14-2003 19:42:54

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