Hi people, I have recently acquired a NTV-1000 set top box that has a 486 DX4-100 in it, so its standard ix86 architecture, but this thing boots from a flash simm its own os (ONX) and no matter what I do I cant get it to boot from its ide interface. This is where linuxbios comes in, would it be possible to put "LinuxBios" onto the original bios in this thing?
The bios is a square smc chip, not like the one documented on the lb website and according to its datasheet its OTP (one time programmable), so flashing it is not an option. I would love to get this thing running as a gateway, but thats pretty much impossible if I cant replace the operating system, the chipset is made by OPTi but finding datahseets on it has proven to be impossible.
I have googled for hours looking for a way to re-flash the flash simm with a linux kernel, but the only solution I could find was to buy a programmer, but since this is just an attempt to resurect some useless hardware, I wont be spending more then a couple of $ on it. I cant even be sure that the flash simm the same pinout as a normal simm, and if it is, i wouldnt even know where to start with writing to it on a standard mobo. I have found once reference to someone getting etherboot on it, but I cant contact him as the post was from 2001 and it was a uni email address.
Anyhow, back on topic, is there a way to adapt this socket to take a DoC and if so, would LinuxBios support the cipset? I am at work at the moment, so I cant give you the chipset part numbers, but if you need them I will send them when I get home.
Regards -- Geoff www.spacevs.com
and if so, would LinuxBios support the cipset? I am at work at the moment,
so I cant give you the chipset part numbers, but if you need them I will send them when I get home.
- SMSC FDC37C665GT (SuperIO) - OPTi 82C802GA (Northbridge?) - OPTi 82C602A (RTC/companion chip?) - OPTi 82C931 (Audio) - Davicom DM9008F (LAN) - IGS CyberPro 2010 (VGA + TV out) - Philips SAA 7111A (TV in)
Looks like your pretty much out of luck for Linuxbios. No support for the OPTi chipset.
From what I saw from google you might be able to get a boot rom from
ROM-o-matic for the davicom card. Although one poster said he had to make mods to the etherboot loader since there is no INT19 support in the BIOS of the device and the NOINT19 stuff in etherboot didn't work. Perhaps thats all fixed now.
Geting it to dhcp a linux kernel and then dumping the northbridge and sourthbridge settings is probably your only chance unless of course you can find a datasheet for OPTi somewhere. You should be able to get the SMC superIO to work pretty easily.
All in all I would say the ROI on that is very low. Probably not worth the effort.
Richard Smith wrote:
- SMSC FDC37C665GT (SuperIO)
- OPTi 82C802GA (Northbridge?)
- OPTi 82C602A (RTC/companion chip?)
- OPTi 82C931 (Audio)
- Davicom DM9008F (LAN)
- IGS CyberPro 2010 (VGA + TV out)
- Philips SAA 7111A (TV in)
Looks like your pretty much out of luck for Linuxbios. No support for the OPTi chipset.
You'll have to set the wayback machine pretty far back to find the data sheets for the Opti chipset. Nothing left at their website:
-Bari
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Bari Ari -
Geoffrey McRae -
Richard Smith