These looks like a flat version of the Emailer… 😊 Cliff properly used something like this to develop the Amstrad Emailers software. Properly the software was made first and see if the hardware works with it so if it didn’t then they can be changed it quickly, he did have to port the Emailer software from the E2(Plus) the E3 so using the source code from the E2 (Plus) and ported it to work with Linux and the E3 hardware, Not sure what OS the E2 used.

Maybe someone can answer that…??

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From: Nick Griffin
Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎16‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎03
To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software

Is there any website about extracting the data from the Amstrad E3 images,if I can’t find a way I be buying another this week, I flashed E3 Linux on it thinking I could put the original Firmware back, ah well, there is nothing you can do with E3 Linux becase it missing so mush programs that in normal Linux because its slimed down..it don’t even have make on it to compile programs on it, this is why it not used and now there are development boards out there now that are faster and can hold Linux on without having to slim it down but this was not made for this, at the end of the day its just a phone and should used as one now.

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From: David Given
Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎59
To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software

There'll be a way to extract the data from the flash backups you have, which you can then write to the device in a way that knows about the bad blocks. The ams_delta installer script will be doing exactly this. I can't remember what any of the E3 partitions do any more but the big one will most likely be a JFFS2 filesystem. Loopback mounting those JFFS2 images is a pain because you need to use mtdram to fake a flash device.

If all else fails, you can always run ams_delta on it.

On Mon, 15 Apr 2019 at 23:34, Nick Griffin <span1922@live.com> wrote:

It looks like when it backs up the NAND its copies the blocks that are bad too making the image bigger, so if you try and restore the E3 back to the way it was, you can’t because the bad Blocks stop it from installing, if you want to use Linux on the E3 use it from the Ramdisk in Release V2 here,Just don’t run ams-delta-install then you will not lose the Amstrad E3 Original Firmware. Like I did and I am gutted. I have to now buy another one and its going to cost me £30 because they are not cheap because they are retro, well…😊How can it be retro when the service only was close 8 years ago. A Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum is retro..😊

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From: Nick Griffin
Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎17‎:‎11
To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software

Well it didn’t flash, and I think it didn’t erase too so my code is wrong I think… looks like it has bad blocks too and they and made the files bigger in size than the partition..???

This process will completely restore your E3's NAND.
This will try and restore The Amstrad firmware on the device. Are you
sure you wish to continue? [y/N]: y

Starting restore.. This might take a while...
Found e3-nand-backup.0
Erasing /dev/mtd0
Erase Total 0 Units
done
Writing e3-nand-backup.0 to /dev/mtd0
Image 3784704 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes, device size 3670016 bytes
Input file does not fit into device: Success
Data did not fit into device, due to bad blocks
: Success
Found e3-nand-backup.1
Erasing /dev/mtd1
Erase Total 0 Units
done
Writing e3-nand-backup.1 to /dev/mtd1
Image 270336 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes, device size 262144 bytes
Input file does not fit into device: Success
Data did not fit into device, due to bad blocks
: Success
Found e3-nand-backup.3
Erasing /dev/mtd3
Erase Total 0 Units
done
Writing e3-nand-backup.3 to /dev/mtd3
Image 270336 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes, device size 262144 bytes
Input file does not fit into device: Success
Data did not fit into device, due to bad blocks
: Success
Found e3-nand-backup.4
Erasing /dev/mtd4
Erase Total 0 Units
done
Writing e3-nand-backup.4 to /dev/mtd4
Image 29196288 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes, device size 28311552 bytes
Input file does not fit into device: Success
Data did not fit into device, due to bad blocks
: Success
Finished restoring the Amstrad E3 Firmware,
Type Reboot to see if the Amstrad E3 splashcreen comes up

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