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Dave Mills wrote: [...]
I've been given an E2, it has never been connected to the 'phone line, so is still running factory fresh software. Has anyone managed to get their own code running on one of these beasts? Any pointers on where to start?
Yes, it's actually fairly straightforward, provided you have the special cable. I have some information here:
http://www.cowlark.com/amstrad/index.html
Once you have the cable, you can use pblq to upload code via the serial cable or to reflash it. Be aware that pblq 0.2 is a bit old; I was in the process of working on it when I managed to fry my E2. I'll try and get 0.3 up on the website soon, along with some more technical stuff I figured out.
You should be aware that the E2's processor has no MMU, which means you can't run normal Linux on it. Porting ucLinux is quite possible but most likely a horrible job. I was partway through porting Prex (a rather nice little Minix-like embedded OS) onto mine when I my UART esplode, but I'll I managed was the boot loader and the very basics of the kernel startup procedure; so while running custom code on an E2 isn't hard, there's not a lot of code to run...
- -- David Given dg@cowlark.com