[LinuxBIOS] LinuxBios on a braille display ?

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Dear all,

I am wondering if it would be possible to run LinuxBios on a braille
device. Regarded from a Linux point of view, such a device is very
similar to a PC or a laptop, as you will certainly notice according to
the datas provided below.
If the device is supported, the idea would be to install a screen-reader
(like brltty) in the BIOS, which would help when there is a problem
while booting the operating system's kernel.

So below are the outputs of lspci -n, lspci -v and lspci -t run on
the terminal. Could someone please tell me whether there is a possibility
or not to install LinuxBios on such a machine ?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help,
Sébastien.

# lspci -n
00:00.0 0600: 1078:0001
00:02.0 0200: 1282:9102 (rev 40)
00:12.0 0601: 1078:0100 (rev 30)
00:12.1 0680: 1078:0101
00:12.2 0101: 1078:0102
00:12.3 0401: 1078:0103
00:12.4 0300: 1078:0104
00:13.0 0c03: 0e11:a0f8 (rev 06)

# lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: Cyrix Corporation PCI Master
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:02.0 Ethernet controller: Davicom Semiconductor, Inc. 21x4x DEC-Tulip compatible 10/100 Ethernet (rev 40)
    Subsystem: Davicom Semiconductor, Inc. Unknown device 8212
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 165, IRQ 11
    I/O ports at 1000 [size=256]
    Memory at fedfe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
    [virtual] Expansion ROM at 10000000 [disabled] [size=256K]
    Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

00:12.0 ISA bridge: Cyrix Corporation 5530 Legacy [Kahlua] (rev 30)
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64

00:12.1 Bridge: Cyrix Corporation 5530 SMI [Kahlua]
    Flags: medium devsel
    Memory at 40012000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]

00:12.2 IDE interface: Cyrix Corporation 5530 IDE [Kahlua] (prog-if 80 [Master])
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
    I/O ports at 1400 [size=16]

00:12.3 Multimedia audio controller: Cyrix Corporation 5530 Audio [Kahlua]
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
    Memory at 40011000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]

00:12.4 VGA compatible controller: Cyrix Corporation 5530 Video [Kahlua] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
    Subsystem: Cyrix Corporation Unknown device 0001
    Flags: medium devsel
    Memory at 40800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]

00:13.0 USB Controller: Compaq Computer Corporation ZFMicro Chipset USB (rev 06) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
    Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation ZFMicro Chipset USB
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 9
    Memory at 000e0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

# lspci -t
-[0000:00]-+-00.0
           +-02.0
           +-12.0
           +-12.1
           +-12.2
           +-12.3
           +-12.4
           -13.0

[ron minnich]

It is a great idea. Is that machine you are showing us kind of old? It
seems old, I am not sure about the northbridge.

ron

[Samuel Thibault]

Hi,

ron minnich, le Thu 01 Mar 2007 14:41:21 -0700, a écrit :
> It is a great idea. Is that machine you are showing us kind of old? It
> seems old, I am not sure about the northbridge.

It's a quite recent device, but it has oldy chips inside indeed...

Samuel

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Hi,
> It is a great idea. Is that machine you are showing us kind of old?

Not really. 2 or 3 years I'd say.
> It
> seems old, I am not sure about the northbridge.

My guess is that the manufacturer triedto use cheap hardware to keep the
price of the whole eevice "reasonnable", given that the braille cells
are themselves expensive.

Sébastien.

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Sébastien Hinderer  [070302 09:03]:
> My guess is that the manufacturer triedto use cheap hardware to keep the
> price of the whole eevice "reasonnable", given that the braille cells
> are themselves expensive.

Do you have some more information about the device? How is the Braille
terminal attached? USB? Serial?

[Samuel Thibault]

Hi,

Stefan Reinauer, le Fri 02 Mar 2007 10:18:57 +0100, a écrit :
> Sébastien Hinderer  [070302 09:03]:
> > My guess is that the manufacturer triedto use cheap hardware to keep the
> > price of the whole eevice "reasonnable", given that the braille cells
> > are themselves expensive.
>
> Do you have some more information about the device? How is the Braille
> terminal attached? USB? Serial?

The braille cells part is attached via serial.

Note: about the braille cells part support, we already discussed about
it on this list earlier:
http://www.openbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2006-July/014925.html

I just didn't yet take the time to implement anything, but for serial
devices I expect things to be just fine.  As discussed in that thread,
USB support (which will be needed for other devices) will be harder, but
would be very useful since devices are now usually USB-based.

Samuel

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Hi,
> The braille cells part is attached via serial.
>
> Note: about the braille cells part support, we already discussed about
> it on this list earlier:
> http://www.openbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2006-July/014925.html

Actually, my suggestion would be to forget that we are talking about a
braille deviceforthe moment, and to talk aboutthe braille-specific
things later.
The only thing I am trying to determine sofar is whether the device
could run LinuxBIOS ornot. Given that the device can b plugge to both a
keyboar and a screen, it makes sense to consider it just as a plain old
PC. So the real question at the moment is: can LB be run on this PC or
not.

Sébastien.

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Sébastien Hinderer  [070302 11:42]:
> Actually, my suggestion would be to forget that we are talking about a
> braille deviceforthe moment, and to talk aboutthe braille-specific
> things later.
> The only thing I am trying to determine sofar is whether the device
> could run LinuxBIOS ornot. Given that the device can b plugge to both a
> keyboar and a screen, it makes sense to consider it just as a plain old
> PC. So the real question at the moment is: can LB be run on this PC or
> not.

It is a geode based system, so my guess is yes, LinuxBIOS can run.

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Hi,

Stefan Reinauer :
> It is a geode based system, so my guess is yes, LinuxBIOS can run.

Okay, thanks !
Since I know absolutely nothing regarding hardware, I have no idea about
what geode is. Could you please explain how you know the system is geode
based ? Are there good pointers I should have a look to ?

Thanks !
Sébastien.

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Sébastien Hinderer  [070302 14:09]:
> Hi,
>
> Stefan Reinauer :
> > It is a geode based system, so my guess is yes, LinuxBIOS can run.
>
> Okay, thanks !
> Since I know absolutely nothing regarding hardware, I have no idea about
> what geode is. Could you please explain how you know the system is geode
> based ? Are there good pointers I should have a look to ?

Geode is the CPU/SoC series used in the system. Originally manufactured
by National Semiconductors and/or Cyrix, AMD bought the technology and
improved it. It's not exactly an "easy" CPU/chipset, but it has been
supported by LinuxBIOS since quite some time.

Is the bios chip of that board socketed or soldered on?

Stefan

[Sébastien Hinderer]

> Geode is the CPU/SoC series used in the system. Originally manufactured
> by National Semiconductors and/or Cyrix, AMD bought the technology and
> improved it. It's not exactly an "easy" CPU/chipset, but it has been
> supported by LinuxBIOS since quite some time.

Okay, thanks.
> Is the bios chip of that board socketed or soldered on?

I don't know what "socketed or soldered on" means.
Should it be the case that at lest one of these is true, or could it be
that none holds ?

And, is there a program/command I could run to answer your question ?
Or perhaps the BIOS itself can answerThis ?

Thanks,
Sébastien.

[Kurt André Selbach]

To find out, the easiest way is to pop it up and look for the bios chip,
It's either soldered or "socketed" on

Socketed:
http://www.flashbios.org/catalog/images/plccsocket.jpg
Soldered:
http://www.ozflash.com.au/images/plcc_c.jpg

My two cents.
On 3/2/07, Sébastien Hinderer  wrote:
> > Geode is the CPU/SoC series used in the system. Originally manufactured
> > by National Semiconductors and/or Cyrix, AMD bought the technology and
> > improved it. It's not exactly an "easy" CPU/chipset, but it has been
> > supported by LinuxBIOS since quite some time.
>
> Okay, thanks.
> > Is the bios chip of that board socketed or soldered on?
>
> I don't know what "socketed or soldered on" means.
> Should it be the case that at lest one of these is true, or could it be
> that none holds ?
>
> And, is there a program/command I could run to answer your question ?
> Or perhaps the BIOS itself can answerThis ?
>
> Thanks,
> Sébastien.

[Peter Stuge]

The flash ROM chip is mounted on the mainboard either by being
soldered to the board, or by being placed in a socket.

Socketed chips can be removed/replaced with just a little physical
force, while soldered-on chips need to be desoldered somehow.

(Soldering is the process of connecting two metal objects using a
third metal that is melted in the joint and then hardened. Compare
welding which means the two metals themselves melt and then harden.)

When developing BIOS software the build/run cycle includes
reprogramming the flash ROM that the system boots from. During
development the BIOS will not allow the system to complete the boot
process and so the system will not be fully usable until the BIOS is
debugged. This means that the flash ROM must be reprogrammed in
another system, or that two flash ROMs can be switched between so
that the system can be started both with a known good BIOS and the
developing LinuxBIOS.

Being able to remove the flash ROM easily from the target system
simplifies development greatly. There's also a product called the
BIOS savior that enables simple switching between two flash ROMs,
it is designed to be mounted in a socket.

Bottom line: flash ROM in socket is a requirement for BIOS
development, otherwise you have only one try to get everything right,
which is unlikely to impossible.

//Peter

[ron minnich]

send us a picture (or just stefan and me) or send a URL for pictures
of both sides of the board.

thanks

ron

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Dear all,

First of all, all my gratitude to those of you who patiently explained
all the basics. This was very useful and very appreciated, since I was (am)
absolutely ignorant regarding BIOses and my too poor english arranges
nothing of course (cRe: soldered).

At the moment, I have no one with me I trust enough for opening the
machine (I am myself blind), so I guess we will have to wait until
April, when I meet Samuel, who nicely accepted to open it for me.

I just asked a friend of mine working in the company who produces the
device, but he does not know whether the chip is socketted or soldered.

In the meanwhile, I remembered that, when we played with the BIOS, we
saw the mention of a company called Kontron. This might be the
company who sold the motherboard to the braille device constructor.

Is this company known by one of you guys ?

Thanks again for your patience and helpfulness !
Sébastien.

[ron minnich]

On 3/5/07, Sébastien Hinderer  wrote:
> In the meanwhile, I remembered that, when we played with the BIOS, we
> saw the mention of a company called Kontron. This might be the
> company who sold the motherboard to the braille device constructor.
>
> Is this company known by one of you guys ?

yes indeed. A good company. Makes all kinds of embedded stuff.

ron

[Samuel Thibault]

ron minnich, le Mon 05 Mar 2007 08:31:13 -0700, a écrit :
> On 3/5/07, Sébastien Hinderer  wrote:
> > In the meanwhile, I remembered that, when we played with the BIOS, we
> > saw the mention of a company called Kontron. This might be the
> > company who sold the motherboard to the braille device constructor.
> >
> > Is this company known by one of you guys ?
>
> yes indeed. A good company. Makes all kinds of embedded stuff.

Well, the question then becomes: do you think they would have socketted
or soldered the BIOS chip ?

Samuel

[Sébastien Hinderer]

> > In the meanwhile, I remembered that, when we played with the BIOS, we
> > saw the mention of a company called Kontron. This might be the
> > company who sold the motherboard to the braille device constructor.
> >
> > Is this company known by one of you guys ?
>
> yes indeed. A good company. Makes all kinds of embedded stuff.

Great !
Is it worth contacting them to try to get more prccise information ?

Thanks,

Sébastien.

[ron minnich]

or someone can just scan their web pages, which are good, to try to
match the board up.

They make boards with soldered-on and socketed flash ... depends on the board.

ron

[Sébastien Hinderer]

> or someone can just scan their web pages, which are good, to try to
> match the board up.

I'd really appreciate if someone coul do that.
For me it is a bit difficult: it takes generally a certain amount of
time to browse the web, especially to locate the relevent information.

Sébastien.

[Peter Stuge]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 08:27:47AM +0100, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:
> I'd really appreciate if someone coul do that.
> For me it is a bit difficult: it takes generally a certain amount
> of time to browse the web, especially to locate the relevent
> information.

I took a quick look at their web but they make so many boards that
it's hard to know which one you have.

Can you tell us anything more that can be useful? Perhaps we can
guess the board size from the size of the box it's in?

It also seems like your board is a bit old, they may even have taken
it off their web page.

I'll give their web page another go.

//Peter

[Sébastien Hinderer]

> I took a quick look at their web but they make so many boards that
> it's hard to know which one you have.

Okay. Thanks a lot.
> Can you tell us anything more that can be useful? Perhaps we can
> guess the board size from the size of the box it's in?

The dimensions are 30x20x3,8 cm, and the weight is 1,8 kg.
The manufacturer is a french company called EuroBraille, and the product
is an Iris KB.
Regarding the connections, I guess lspci told you even more than I know.
If there are other informations that might be of some interest,
please don't hesitate to ask, I will do my best to provide them.

Anyway... Samuel and I will probably open the device in April.
> It also seems like your board is a bit old, they may even have taken
> it off their web page.
>
> I'll give their web page another go.

Thanks again !
Sébastien.

[Samuel Thibault]

Hi,

Maybe you could plug a VGA screen and ask somebody to write down
everything that the screen shows when BIOS boots?

Samuel

[LinuxBIOS] What are the current supported Nvidia northbridges?

[Adam Talbot]

What are the current supported Nvidia northbridges?
-Adam

[LinuxBIOS] What are the current supported Nvidia northbridges?

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Adam Talbot  [070306 21:23]:
> What are the current supported Nvidia northbridges?

* MCP55
* CK804

[LinuxBIOS] Are there any desktop class north bridges supported?

[Adam Talbot]

Looking for any desktop class northbridge supported by linuxbios?
Looking for a cheap socket 939 motherboard, in the mini-ATX form factor, 
that can support linuxbios.
-Adam

[LinuxBIOS] Are there any desktop class north bridges supported?

[Greg Lindahl]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 01:01:07PM -0800, Adam Talbot wrote:
> Looking for any desktop class northbridge supported by linuxbios?
> Looking for a cheap socket 939 motherboard, in the mini-ATX form factor, 
> that can support linuxbios.

Terminology nit for this and the other thread: in the Opteron world,
the northbridge (memory controller etc) is built into the CPU. That
other chip (or two) is called a southbridge (pci, junk devices).

-- g

[LinuxBIOS] Are there any desktop class north bridges supported?

[Adam Talbot]

South bridge?  or companion chip?
-Adam

Greg Lindahl wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 01:01:07PM -0800, Adam Talbot wrote:
> > Looking for any desktop class northbridge supported by linuxbios?
> > Looking for a cheap socket 939 motherboard, in the mini-ATX form factor, 
> > that can support linuxbios.
>
> Terminology nit for this and the other thread: in the Opteron world,
> the northbridge (memory controller etc) is built into the CPU. That
> other chip (or two) is called a southbridge (pci, junk devices).
>
> -- g

[LinuxBIOS] What are the current supported Nvidia northbridges?

[Uwe Hermann]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 09:22:52PM +0100, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Adam Talbot  [070306 21:23]:
> > What are the current supported Nvidia northbridges?
> MCP55
> CK804

Huh? Aren't those _south_bridges?

As far as I know not a single NVIDIA northbridge is supported.

Uwe.

[Sébastien Hinderer]

> Maybe you could plug a VGA screen and ask somebody to write down
> everything that the screen shows when BIOS boots?

We already tried, and the experience was not very fruitful...
Sébastien.

[Sébastien Hinderer]

> Maybe you could plug a VGA screen and ask somebody to write down
> everything that the screen shows when BIOS boots?

Going through my notes, I foun :

Kontron embedded modules GMBH MOD1R418.
May the MOD1R418 help ?

Cheers,
Sébastien.

[Peter Stuge]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 03:28:52PM +0100, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:
> Regarding the connections, I guess lspci told you even more than I
> know.

The lspci matches the Kontron JRex-GX1 and JRex-GX1LCD/PLUS boards.

I can only find one photo of each board on Kontron's site and only
the GX1LCD seems to have a socket. There is a TSOP flash chip on the
GX1 that is soldered. The GX1LCD uses a PLCC chip in a socket.
(TSOP and PLCC are two common flash chip packages.)

The photos only show the top of both boards so there is a small
chance that there's a PLCC socket on the bottom of the GX1 board, but
I doubt that, and there's no other common chip that would be in a
TSOP package in a Geode GX1 design other than the flash ROM.

The boards differ in where the different connectors are located.

GX1 has connectors in this order:
Serial, VGA, S-video, LAN, USB

GX1LCD has them in this order:
USB, S-video, LAN, serial, VGA

Does either match the connectors on your box?

Another thing to note, the GX1LCD connectors are not all lined up,
that is, the USB and LAN connectors protrude a bit from the edge of
the board, whereas on the GX1 all connectors are flush with the board
edge.

Unfortunately I think you have the JRex-GX1 board with the soldered
TSOP flash chip, since the GX1LCD is a PC/104 board targeted at
industrial solutions while the GX1 board is in a form factor better
suited for inclusion in appliances.

TSOP chips are more difficult to work with than PLCC because they
have a much finer pitch between the pins, there's 0.5mm between the
center of two adjacent pins, and each pin is 0.2mm wide.

That said, anything is possible, there are ways to work with TSOP
chips too, but I'm afraid it's a lot more work and it will require
some expensive tools.

//Peter

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Dear all,

Samuel Thibault, which is on the list, has opened the braille terminal.
> From his investigation, we know that the BIOS is soldered to the

motherboard.
Does it mean that every hope is lost, or would it be possible to use an
external BIOS to do the development, or another simila solution ?

Thanks,
Sébastien.

[Samuel Thibault]

Hi,

Sébastien Hinderer, le Thu 03 May 2007 20:41:05 +0200, a écrit :
> Samuel Thibault, which is on the list, has opened the braille terminal.

Oh yes, I forgot to tell the list the result of this. This is indeed
a Geode GX1 system (though there is a lot of stuff around it).  The
chip most probably responsible for holding the BIOS is labelled
AM28F040B-90ED and is indeed soldered on the board through very thin
pins.

Samuel

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Samuel Thibault  [070503 20:47]:
> Oh yes, I forgot to tell the list the result of this. This is indeed
> a Geode GX1 system (though there is a lot of stuff around it).  The
> chip most probably responsible for holding the BIOS is labelled
> AM28F040B-90ED and is indeed soldered on the board through very thin
> pins.

If you are into soldering, or know someone close to you who is, you can
try to desolder the part and attach a socket instead. I always thought
stuff like this is pretty crazy, but it can be (and has been) done.

[Samuel Thibault]

Stefan Reinauer, le Fri 04 May 2007 01:37:18 +0200, a écrit :
> Samuel Thibault  [070503 20:47]:
> > Oh yes, I forgot to tell the list the result of this. This is indeed
> > a Geode GX1 system (though there is a lot of stuff around it).  The
> > chip most probably responsible for holding the BIOS is labelled
> > AM28F040B-90ED and is indeed soldered on the board through very thin
> > pins.
>
> If you are into soldering, or know someone close to you who is, you can
> try to desolder the part and attach a socket instead. I always thought
> stuff like this is pretty crazy, but it can be (and has been) done.

Hum, I didn't think about that solution.  The problem is that we are
quite tight on the height of the device :/

Samuel

[Peter Stuge]

On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:42:11AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> quite tight on the height

How tight? How much clearance is there above the existing flash chip?

//Peter

[Samuel Thibault]

Hi,

Peter Stuge, le Fri 04 May 2007 01:54:10 +0200, a écrit :
> On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:42:11AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > quite tight on the height
>
> How tight? How much clearance is there above the existing flash chip?

I can't remember exactly.  The problem is that they put the Geode board
in a little metal box (as drawn on the .eps figure) for protecting it
from interferences.  That said, on the same epoxy board, there is a
compact flash card reader, so there is at least room for so tall an
equipment.

Samuel

[Samuel Thibault]

Samuel Thibault, le Fri 04 May 2007 02:03:24 +0200, a écrit :
> Peter Stuge, le Fri 04 May 2007 01:54:10 +0200, a écrit :
> > On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:42:11AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > > quite tight on the height
> >
> > How tight? How much clearance is there above the existing flash chip?
>
> I can't remember exactly.  The problem is that they put the Geode board
> in a little metal box (as drawn on the .eps figure) for protecting it
> from interferences.  That said, on the same epoxy board, there is a
> compact flash card reader, so there is at least room for so tall an
> equipment.

So, do you think that a socket could fit if a compact flash card reader
does?

Samuel

[Peter Stuge]

On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 09:20:35PM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > > How tight? How much clearance is there above the existing flash
> > > chip?
> >
> > on the same epoxy board, there is a compact flash card reader
>
> So, do you think that a socket could fit if a compact flash card
> reader does?

The socket I have in mind is from Emulation Technology:

http://www.emulation.com/catalog/off-the-shelf_solutions/sockets/tsop/

It's 5.33mm high which is more than the most slim CF sockets, but it
may just fit.

Is it possible to use the system with the top off if the socket
doesn't fit? Perhaps a hole could be cut in the lid?

//Peter

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Hi,

Peter Stuge :
> > So, do you think that a socket could fit if a compact flash card
> > reader does?
>
> The socket I have in mind is from Emulation Technology:
>
> http://www.emulation.com/catalog/off-the-shelf_solutions/sockets/tsop/
>
> It's 5.33mm high which is more than the most slim CF sockets, but it
> may just fit.
>
> Is it possible to use the system with the top off if the socket
> doesn't fit? Perhaps a hole could be cut in the lid?

Samuel probably knows better than I do what to answer to these
questions.

What I don't understand very well is what this socket oes exactly.
The idea would be tosolder it to the mother board, and then one would be
able to put the chip we want in the socket, meaning switching betwween a
chip containing a development BIOS and the stable one. Am I correct ?

Thanks,
Sébastien.

[Corey Osgood]

Sébastien Hinderer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Peter Stuge :
> > > So, do you think that a socket could fit if a compact flash card
> > > reader does?
> >
> > The socket I have in mind is from Emulation Technology:
> >
> > http://www.emulation.com/catalog/off-the-shelf_solutions/sockets/tsop/
> >
> > It's 5.33mm high which is more than the most slim CF sockets, but it
> > may just fit.
> >
> > Is it possible to use the system with the top off if the socket
> > doesn't fit? Perhaps a hole could be cut in the lid?
>
> Samuel probably knows better than I do what to answer to these
> questions.
>
> What I don't understand very well is what this socket oes exactly.
> The idea would be tosolder it to the mother board, and then one would be
> able to put the chip we want in the socket, meaning switching betwween a
> chip containing a development BIOS and the stable one. Am I correct ?

Yes, you are correct. Unless you have a socket and and a pair of chips,
one for the original bios and one to test linuxbios with, you'll brick
your board on the first attempt.

-Corey

[Peter Stuge]

On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:37:18AM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> If you are into soldering, or know someone close to you who is, you
> can try to desolder the part and attach a socket instead.

You could get me to do it if you can bring the system to the LinuxTag
in Berlin end of May and buy me some beers. I promise to solder
before drinking the beers. :)

//Peter

[Samuel Thibault]

Samuel Thibault, le Thu 03 May 2007 20:47:50 +0200, a écrit :
> Sébastien Hinderer, le Thu 03 May 2007 20:41:05 +0200, a écrit :
> > Samuel Thibault, which is on the list, has opened the braille terminal.
>
> Oh yes, I forgot to tell the list the result of this. This is indeed
> a Geode GX1 system (though there is a lot of stuff around it).  The
> chip most probably responsible for holding the BIOS is labelled
> AM28F040B-90ED and is indeed soldered on the board through very thin
> pins.

For the curious people, I've drawn a rough picture of the whole device:

http://brl.thefreecat.org/iris.eps

Samuel

[Peter Stuge]

Hello,

On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 08:41:05PM +0200, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:
> Does it mean that every hope is lost,

Not yet.
> would it be possible to use an external BIOS to do the development,

Yes, but it must then replace the flash chip soldered to the
mainboard, so the original chip has to be desoldered. Also the
required equipment for this (a ROM emulator) is currently a bit
expensive at a few hundred dollars. However, the FLASH-PLAICE which
is being developed around a $150 hardware platform could be used once
the software and firmware for the PLAICE is ready.

On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 08:47:50PM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> This is indeed a Geode GX1 system (though there is a lot of stuff
> around it).

Did you happen to take a photo of it?
> The chip most probably responsible for holding the BIOS is labelled
> AM28F040B-90ED

Yep, this is a 4Mbit == 512kb flash chip from our friends at AMD.
> and is indeed soldered on the board through very thin pins.

Could you identify the packaging? Please see:
http://linuxbios.org/FAQ#How_do_I_identify_the_BIOS_chip_on_my_mainboard.3F
> From "very thin" I suspect that it's a TSOP, but please check anyway.

Reworking TSOP chips without the right tools is no fun, but it can be
done even with just a very warm soldering iron, and if the chip
doesn't have to be re-used it's even easier. (Just cut off all the
pins and then use any soldering iron and a soldering wick to clean up
all the pins and the solder that held them to the mainboard.)

There are TSOP sockets that could be installed where the chip used to
be, but I haven't found them available in smaller quantities than
what would cost a few $100. (Maybe segor.de have some though.)

//Peter

[Samuel Thibault]

Hi,

Peter Stuge, le Fri 04 May 2007 01:48:39 +0200, a écrit :
> On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 08:47:50PM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > This is indeed a Geode GX1 system (though there is a lot of stuff
> > around it).
>
> Did you happen to take a photo of it?

I completely forgot to take a camera, and my cell phone's camera didn't
produce any workable result.
> > and is indeed soldered on the board through very thin pins.
>
> Could you identify the packaging? Please see:
> http://linuxbios.org/FAQ#How_do_I_identify_the_BIOS_chip_on_my_mainboard.3F
>
> From "very thin" I suspect that it's a TSOP, but please check anyway.

Yes, that's it.
> if the chip doesn't have to be re-used it's even easier.

Mmm, we should make sure to be able to dump the existing BIOS first :)

Samuel

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Stefan Reinauer :
> Sébastien Hinderer  [070302 09:03]:
> > My guess is that the manufacturer triedto use cheap hardware to keep the
> > price of the whole eevice "reasonnable", given that the braille cells
> > are themselves expensive.
>
> Do you have some more information about the device? How is the Braille
> terminal attached? USB? Serial?

Serial.
Let me know if you need additional info.
Sébastien.