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Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) colincross Profile A serial link can be established to the CPU in the Cevia/Polaroid Photomax Digital Picture frames. The manufacturer has kindly left large solder pads that link to the serial port, and to a pin that when pulled low puts the CPU in a debugging mode. In this mode, it will wait for 2Kb of StrongARM executable code to be dumped through the serial port, and then execute it. Some of the possibilities for this code: Print Hello World to the serial port (done) Print Hello World to the screen (still working on it) Replace the code in the Flash memory with linux (eventually) If people (especially people with experience in ARM assembly) want to help, let me know at colincross at bigfoot.com Instructions will be available soon on how to get the serial connection (it requires soldering to the main board, but only to large solder pads - no surface mount stuff). See http://web.mit.edu/colin/www/ceiva/ 04-19-2002 14:35:09

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) zeropanic Profile Good! Please continue on with this :o) 04-26-2002 08:13:56

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) bigdork1 Profile sweet deal I picked up one of these for 5 bucks a couple of weeks ago. Let us know what you find out. 04-26-2002 19:02:47

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Picked one up yesterday on Ebay...paid more than $5 but less than $100... 04-27-2002 09:50:15

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) flamedog Profile Saw this very basic "How stuff works" that covers the Ceiva: http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-picture-frame.htm Interesting that the new model will have a CompactFlash slot. 05-01-2002 11:29:55

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <zeropanic> Any news? 05-14-2002 05:28:24

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) zeropanic Profile Eh, PeteC? 05-14-2002 10:06:25

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <zeropanic> Just wondering about being able to upload custom pics via your newly developed (or soon to be) hack.... I am not a programmer but can follow direction well when you are ready to beta test.... 05-14-2002 22:06:00

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) squash Profile | Email Pete, Zeropanic isn't the guy who is working on this hack. It's colincross. 05-15-2002 07:08:16

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) rscott Profile Colin just updated his web page: http://web.mit.edu/colin/www/ceiva/ I just finished my RS-232 converter, and photo-frame hardware mods. I followed (mostly) Colin's HOWTO to get the intial boot loader flashed into the frame. Haven't yet built a kernel... Note for PeteC: you'll have to build the RS-232 converter and do hardware mods (both easy - took me about .5 day), in order to re-flash the frame's built-in software. Hope that doesn't prove too much of a hurdle! 05-15-2002 12:42:32

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <rscott> Guess I am showing my old age. Can solder ok but vision isn't what it used to be. <Zeropanic> sorry about the typo. Sounds pretty easy...will give it a try.... 05-15-2002 17:55:23

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) victorygau Profile | Email I am no techie but I would like to somehow use it with Cybiko classic via the serial port 05-16-2002 05:29:24

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) rscott Profile <Victorygau> I suppose you could, but it's a pretty limited system: 2 MB flash, 4 MB DRAM, no connectivity, other than the serial port. (The modem is implemented as a soft modem, and I know of no free implementations of same). What is your intention? 05-16-2002 13:44:31

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) victorygau Profile | Email Maybe just to have a cheap wireless interface for uploading and showing of photos. Obviously slow but could be used like say a passive menu in a restaurant linked to a server without all the wires. I understand that 19200 is pretty slow but it is very cheap 05-17-2002 02:17:14

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) rscott Profile That would be cool! I forgot that Cybiko's were wireless. After linux is running on the frame, I hope to have a simple app which will push pictures over a PPP link to the frame. If the Cybiko can provide a transparent link, then you could do it wirelessly... 05-17-2002 08:01:30

RE:Ceiva Picture Frames are hackable! (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Just a note to bring thread up to top again. Any news out there? It would be nice to be able to upload a couple of pics without a modem dial up connection or take advantage of the modem connection to upload pics. 06-13-2002 04:25:35

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