Can someone look at this… Just edited the ams-delta-install script and renamed it to ams-delta-restore-e3-install

I can do all the work and tests, Just need a expert to look at the code and see if it OK because I am just reading up on MTD NAND write and dumping stuff on the net. This is how you learn you ask someone to help you and they help you and if you are wrong then you will remember how to do it next time… 😊

”#!/bin/sh

if (! grep -q /dev/sda1 /proc/mounts); then echo "No install media mounted; couldn't find /dev/sda in /proc/mounts" exit 1; fi

echo

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

read i

if [ ! "x$i" = "xy" -a ! "x$i" = "xY" ]; then echo echo Aborting. exit 1 fi

echo echo Starting restore...

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 ]; then echo Found e3-nand-backup.0 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd0" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.0 to /dev/mtd0" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd0 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.1 ]; then echo Found e3-nand-backup.1 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd1" flash_erase /dev/mtd1 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.1 to /dev/mtd1" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd1 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.1 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.3 ]; then echo Found e3-nand-backup.3 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd3" flash_erase /dev/mtd3 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.3 to /dev/mtd3" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd3 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.3 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.4 ]; then echo Found e3-nand-backup.4 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd4" flash_erase /dev/mtd4 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.4 to /dev/mtd4" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd3 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.3 fi

echo "Done."

What do you think… Would this work…?

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎19‎:‎32 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Just copy the Amstrad Firmware to USB and as well flash Linux on the E3 so now I have to find a way to flash it back.. 😊 wow its takes a long time to boot, it took about a hour to copy the Amstrad Firmware over to USB.Is each file a copy of the partition(mtd0,1,2,3,4,5,) only mtd0,1,3 and 4 get flashed with the new system, so if the backups are complete copies then they could be flash back the same way, maybe something like this, taking the code for mdt0..

”if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 ]; then echo Found Amstrad kernel. echo " Erasing /dev/mtd0" flash_eraseall /dev/mtd0 echo " Writing Amstrad kernel to /dev/mtd0" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd0 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 fi”

Mtd0,2,3,4,5 Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 only need to restore mtd0,1,3 and 4 so ones with a * on. mtd0: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00300000* mtd1: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd2: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000 mtd3: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd4: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000* mtd5: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000 I don’t know how much of the Nand you would need to erase for each partition..? So lucky I recored the install..😊 I be uploading soon once I have edited it. This is just guess work don’t know if it would work, need someone who knows about the code. If I manage to flash the Amstrad Firmware back and it works then you be able to flash any E3 firmware this way so even with one with the config change on it.

There is info here how to flash to mtd .. https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,16789,16800https://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3%2c16789%2c16800&data=02%7c01%7c%7c43dd69f306b24fa4d01308d6bf7526b0%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636906907207602767&sdata=l0A1sVMwvXx2BYpNyQBhS72Osn/%2BKERDRDUddCciVB8%3D&reserved=0

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎10 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Oh one more thing.. the USB memory stick,does it matter if its fat or fat32 formatted to copy the 6 files over to it,it don’t say in the Readme..?

Spanner..

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎02 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

“When it flash's Linux to the E3 it only uses partitions mtd0,mtd1,mtd3 and mtd4, so mtd2 and mtd3 is not used.”

mtd0 - kernel mtd1 - PBL ( Maybe, I say this because Uboot is flashed there.) mtd3 - ldr ( File System..? uses mtdblock3 of mtd3) mtd4 - Root( Root File System,maybe ?? uses mtdblock4 of mtd4)

What are mtd2 and mtd5 used for..??

Trying to find out what each Partition is used for?

Is the Amstrad Install Script running in a Ramdisk..?? You have 2 Uboot images the same, one for flashing the other on for the install so you made it a bit like FEL mode where you hold down the FEL Button and can boot into Uboot +ramdisk from you PC thought its usb cable that powers it then you can mount the system partition to get into files and folders, that's on TheC64 Mini. Most Developing Boards now have the FEL button.

Just trying to find out more ,it dumps the firmware into 6 partitions, when it dumps them, can they be put back the way they are or do they need to be converted, so what I am say, are they raw files so they can’t be used the way they are at the moment…?

You can backup your firmware with this script without installing Linux on the E3,you can say no to installing it, right..?? if so I will try and see if I can back the E3 up to get the 6 backup files.

P.S Have not done anything with my E2Plus yet, if I can backup its firmware and then flash it back then I can fix the dead E2s out there, but I need help. If I can backup its firmware I am willing to share it.But don’t worry my E2Plus is going no where.. 😊 Just been looking at you page Ralph,One of the problem with the E2 is it don’t run Linux, I am trying to find out more about its firmware at the moment. The E1 and E2 use the same Firmware and same CPU Sharp LH79531 ARM (L136 00B), the only difference in them is the Plus had ZX Spectrum games. So I might be able to use the firmware from the E2 on the E1. The E3 had a different CPU because it need a MMU for the Colour LCD screen so need to be more powerful than the E1,E2.

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Hi Nick,

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 ]; then echo Found e3-nand-backup.0 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd0" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.0 to /dev/mtd0" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd0 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 fi

Parameterise the code to extract the error-prone repetition, and avoid the reader having lots of versions to compare.

perhaps_write_flash() { p=${1?} erase=${2?} f=/media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.$p dev=/dev/mtd$p

test -e $f || return

echo found $f echo erasing $erase on $dev flash_erase $dev 0 $erase echo writing flash nandwrite -on $dev $f }

perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 1 ...

Untested, obviously.

mtd0 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00380000...* mtd1 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd2 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000... mtd3 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd4 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000...* mtd5 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000...

Why are there saying all the same block size..?

Only need to restore mtd0, mtd1, mtd3 and mtd4 so ones with a star(*) on.mtd2, mtd5 are not flashed over.

Spanner..

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎19‎:‎32 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Just copy the Amstrad Firmware to USB and as well flash Linux on the E3 so now I have to find a way to flash it back.. 😊 wow its takes a long time to boot, it took about a hour to copy the Amstrad Firmware over to USB.Is each file a copy of the partition(mtd0,1,2,3,4,5,) only mtd0,1,3 and 4 get flashed with the new system, so if the backups are complete copies then they could be flash back the same way, maybe something like this, taking the code for mdt0..

”if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 ]; then echo Found Amstrad kernel. echo " Erasing /dev/mtd0" flash_eraseall /dev/mtd0 echo " Writing Amstrad kernel to /dev/mtd0" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd0 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 fi”

Mtd0,2,3,4,5 Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 only need to restore mtd0,1,3 and 4 so ones with a * on. mtd0: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00300000* mtd1: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd2: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000 mtd3: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd4: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000* mtd5: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000 I don’t know how much of the Nand you would need to erase for each partition..? So lucky I recored the install..😊 I be uploading soon once I have edited it. This is just guess work don’t know if it would work, need someone who knows about the code. If I manage to flash the Amstrad Firmware back and it works then you be able to flash any E3 firmware this way so even with one with the config change on it.

There is info here how to flash to mtd .. https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,16789,16800https://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3%2c16789%2c16800&data=02%7c01%7c%7c43dd69f306b24fa4d01308d6bf7526b0%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636906907207602767&sdata=l0A1sVMwvXx2BYpNyQBhS72Osn/%2BKERDRDUddCciVB8%3D&reserved=0

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎10 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Oh one more thing.. the USB memory stick,does it matter if its fat or fat32 formatted to copy the 6 files over to it,it don’t say in the Readme..?

Spanner..

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎02 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

“When it flash's Linux to the E3 it only uses partitions mtd0,mtd1,mtd3 and mtd4, so mtd2 and mtd3 is not used.”

mtd0 - kernel mtd1 - PBL ( Maybe, I say this because Uboot is flashed there.) mtd3 - ldr ( File System..? uses mtdblock3 of mtd3) mtd4 - Root( Root File System,maybe ?? uses mtdblock4 of mtd4)

What are mtd2 and mtd5 used for..??

Trying to find out what each Partition is used for?

Is the Amstrad Install Script running in a Ramdisk..?? You have 2 Uboot images the same, one for flashing the other on for the install so you made it a bit like FEL mode where you hold down the FEL Button and can boot into Uboot +ramdisk from you PC thought its usb cable that powers it then you can mount the system partition to get into files and folders, that's on TheC64 Mini. Most Developing Boards now have the FEL button.

Just trying to find out more ,it dumps the firmware into 6 partitions, when it dumps them, can they be put back the way they are or do they need to be converted, so what I am say, are they raw files so they can’t be used the way they are at the moment…?

You can backup your firmware with this script without installing Linux on the E3,you can say no to installing it, right..?? if so I will try and see if I can back the E3 up to get the 6 backup files.

P.S Have not done anything with my E2Plus yet, if I can backup its firmware and then flash it back then I can fix the dead E2s out there, but I need help. If I can backup its firmware I am willing to share it.But don’t worry my E2Plus is going no where.. 😊 Just been looking at you page Ralph,One of the problem with the E2 is it don’t run Linux, I am trying to find out more about its firmware at the moment. The E1 and E2 use the same Firmware and same CPU Sharp LH79531 ARM (L136 00B), the only difference in them is the Plus had ZX Spectrum games. So I might be able to use the firmware from the E2 on the E1. The E3 had a different CPU because it need a MMU for the Colour LCD screen so need to be more powerful than the E1,E2.

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https://github.com/hpjansson/chafa

Chafa is a command-line utility that converts all kinds of images, including animated GIFs, into ANSI/Unicode character output that can be displayed in a terminal.

It is highly configurable, with support for alpha transparency and multiple color modes and color spaces, combining selectable ranges of Unicode characters to produce the desired output.

The core functionality is provided by a C library with a public, well-documented API.

It has official web pageshttps://hpjansson.org/chafa/ and C API documentationhttp://hpjansson.org/chafa/ref/ online

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Hi.. I just wanted to know if I could install its tarball because E3 Linux don’t have a repository to install programs, but it might need dependencieshttps://askubuntu.com/questions/361741/what-are-dependencies so its trial and error to see which programs works and what don’t, I thought it was a good idea using it as photo viewer, the goal was to put Linux on the E3 but now, you have to find something to do with it otherwise what's the point of putting Linux on it in the first place, Well part of it is a learning curve and to see if it was possible, hats of to all that made it possible.. 😊 but it needs a end result,the whole idea is to make it better and useful, what it really needs is a basic desktop, something bit like what's on the Raspberry PI 1 or Zero but the E3 is probably not powerful enough or it needs its own custom GUI.

It would be good if it had a splash screen while its booting so you know its doing something.

This is the only place I can ask, there's no support for E3 Linux anyway else.

It does need a repository of the programs that work with E3 Linux. That way it can be updated too, but it would need to be connected to the internet by a Ethernet adapter but only certain ones will work becase all it drivers are in its kernel, and have to be installed there to get a new device working,I know abit about Linux, well I did make Commodore OS.. 😊

Anyway hope you all have a great day.. 😉

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎14‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎36 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi,

Chafa is a command-line utility that converts all kinds of images, including animated GIFs, into ANSI/Unicode character output that can be displayed in a terminal.

Can we stick to on-topic stuff, please? We've been asleep on the list for many years, and the flurry of emails is a bit of a shock. Superfluous ones like this don't help. :-)

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

Dam..Just tried to flash the E3 and now it don’t boot, ah well..☹ With that's code and it starred coming up with “Flashing Data to NAND Flash without EEC in not recommended”

On Putty it just comes up with this and that's it.. “Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*” Dam have to buy another one now. Ah well if you don’t try you’ll never learn.. 😊

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎13‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎16‎:‎46 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

root@amsdeltamailto:root@amsdelta:~# cat /proc/mtd dev: size erasesize name mtd0: 00380000 00004000 "Kernel" mtd1: 00040000 00004000 "u-boot" mtd2: 00040000 00004000 "u-boot params" mtd3: 00040000 00004000 "Amstrad LDR" mtd4: 01b00000 00004000 "File system" mtd5: 000c0000 00004000 "PBL reserved" Just realised there are all the same Block size, look at the erasesize. “flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16” whats the 16 for at the end of the line, is it what block size to erase, ( can’t work out what number to put there)could I just erase the whole partition(mtd0) with “flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 0”..? I don’t want to made a mistake..??

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎13‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎16‎:‎24 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

mtd0 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00380000...* mtd1 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd2 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000... mtd3 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd4 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000...* mtd5 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000...

Why are there saying all the same block size..?

Only need to restore mtd0, mtd1, mtd3 and mtd4 so ones with a star(*) on.mtd2, mtd5 are not flashed over.

Spanner..

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎19‎:‎32 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Just copy the Amstrad Firmware to USB and as well flash Linux on the E3 so now I have to find a way to flash it back.. 😊 wow its takes a long time to boot, it took about a hour to copy the Amstrad Firmware over to USB.Is each file a copy of the partition(mtd0,1,2,3,4,5,) only mtd0,1,3 and 4 get flashed with the new system, so if the backups are complete copies then they could be flash back the same way, maybe something like this, taking the code for mdt0..

”if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 ]; then echo Found Amstrad kernel. echo " Erasing /dev/mtd0" flash_eraseall /dev/mtd0 echo " Writing Amstrad kernel to /dev/mtd0" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd0 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 fi”

Mtd0,2,3,4,5 Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 only need to restore mtd0,1,3 and 4 so ones with a * on. mtd0: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00300000* mtd1: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd2: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000 mtd3: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd4: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000* mtd5: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000 I don’t know how much of the Nand you would need to erase for each partition..? So lucky I recored the install..😊 I be uploading soon once I have edited it. This is just guess work don’t know if it would work, need someone who knows about the code. If I manage to flash the Amstrad Firmware back and it works then you be able to flash any E3 firmware this way so even with one with the config change on it.

There is info here how to flash to mtd .. https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,16789,16800https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url%3Dhttps://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3%252c16789%252c16800%26data%3D02%257c01%257c%257c43dd69f306b24fa4d01308d6bf7526b0%257c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%257c1%257c0%257c636906907207602767%26sdata%3Dl0A1sVMwvXx2BYpNyQBhS72Osn/%252BKERDRDUddCciVB8%253D%26reserved%3D0&data=02%7c01%7c%7c4337d4d22ed34c948f7e08d6c0273e89%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636907672114917921&sdata=8zfyyhh%2Bl3lzg4S9X0RSMoAihn%2BsTAdIdxyDb7m8tzo%3D&reserved=0

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎10 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Oh one more thing.. the USB memory stick,does it matter if its fat or fat32 formatted to copy the 6 files over to it,it don’t say in the Readme..?

Spanner..

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎02 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

“When it flash's Linux to the E3 it only uses partitions mtd0,mtd1,mtd3 and mtd4, so mtd2 and mtd3 is not used.”

mtd0 - kernel mtd1 - PBL ( Maybe, I say this because Uboot is flashed there.) mtd3 - ldr ( File System..? uses mtdblock3 of mtd3) mtd4 - Root( Root File System,maybe ?? uses mtdblock4 of mtd4)

What are mtd2 and mtd5 used for..??

Trying to find out what each Partition is used for?

Is the Amstrad Install Script running in a Ramdisk..?? You have 2 Uboot images the same, one for flashing the other on for the install so you made it a bit like FEL mode where you hold down the FEL Button and can boot into Uboot +ramdisk from you PC thought its usb cable that powers it then you can mount the system partition to get into files and folders, that's on TheC64 Mini. Most Developing Boards now have the FEL button.

Just trying to find out more ,it dumps the firmware into 6 partitions, when it dumps them, can they be put back the way they are or do they need to be converted, so what I am say, are they raw files so they can’t be used the way they are at the moment…?

You can backup your firmware with this script without installing Linux on the E3,you can say no to installing it, right..?? if so I will try and see if I can back the E3 up to get the 6 backup files.

P.S Have not done anything with my E2Plus yet, if I can backup its firmware and then flash it back then I can fix the dead E2s out there, but I need help. If I can backup its firmware I am willing to share it.But don’t worry my E2Plus is going no where.. 😊 Just been looking at you page Ralph,One of the problem with the E2 is it don’t run Linux, I am trying to find out more about its firmware at the moment. The E1 and E2 use the same Firmware and same CPU Sharp LH79531 ARM (L136 00B), the only difference in them is the Plus had ZX Spectrum games. So I might be able to use the firmware from the E2 on the E1. The E3 had a different CPU because it need a MMU for the Colour LCD screen so need to be more powerful than the E1,E2.

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Its lights flash when you plug it in and thats it pbltool says probbing and nothing else...?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message -------- From: David Given dg@cowlark.com Date: 13/04/2019 22:58 (GMT+00:00) To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software e3-hacking@earth.li Subject: Re: [E3-hacking] Understanding the E3s Partitions

It's pretty hard to brick them --- PBL's in a different ROM chip to the main flash (and I think you can't reflash it anyway?), so even if you've trashed the main flash PBL runs. So, you should be able to connect pbltool or pblq to it and read and reflash, even if it doesn't boot.

On Sat, 13 Apr 2019 at 21:47, Nick Griffin <span1922@live.commailto:span1922@live.com> wrote: Dam..Just tried to flash the E3 and now it don’t boot, ah well..☹ With that's code and it starred coming up with “Flashing Data to NAND Flash without EEC in not recommended”

On Putty it just comes up with this and that's it.. “Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*” Dam have to buy another one now. Ah well if you don’t try you’ll never learn.. 😊

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎13‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎16‎:‎46 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

root@amsdeltamailto:root@amsdelta:~# cat /proc/mtd dev: size erasesize name mtd0: 00380000 00004000 "Kernel" mtd1: 00040000 00004000 "u-boot" mtd2: 00040000 00004000 "u-boot params" mtd3: 00040000 00004000 "Amstrad LDR" mtd4: 01b00000 00004000 "File system" mtd5: 000c0000 00004000 "PBL reserved" Just realised there are all the same Block size, look at the erasesize. “flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16” whats the 16 for at the end of the line, is it what block size to erase, ( can’t work out what number to put there)could I just erase the whole partition(mtd0) with “flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 0”..? I don’t want to made a mistake..??

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎13‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎16‎:‎24 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

mtd0 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00380000...* mtd1 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd2 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000... mtd3 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd4 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000...* mtd5 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000...

Why are there saying all the same block size..?

Only need to restore mtd0, mtd1, mtd3 and mtd4 so ones with a star(*) on.mtd2, mtd5 are not flashed over.

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎19‎:‎32 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Just copy the Amstrad Firmware to USB and as well flash Linux on the E3 so now I have to find a way to flash it back.. 😊 wow its takes a long time to boot, it took about a hour to copy the Amstrad Firmware over to USB.Is each file a copy of the partition(mtd0,1,2,3,4,5,) only mtd0,1,3 and 4 get flashed with the new system, so if the backups are complete copies then they could be flash back the same way, maybe something like this, taking the code for mdt0..

”if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 ]; then echo Found Amstrad kernel. echo " Erasing /dev/mtd0" flash_eraseall /dev/mtd0 echo " Writing Amstrad kernel to /dev/mtd0" nandwrite -on /dev/mtd0 /media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.0 fi”

Mtd0,2,3,4,5 Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 only need to restore mtd0,1,3 and 4 so ones with a * on. mtd0: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00300000* mtd1: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd2: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000 mtd3: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000* mtd4: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000* mtd5: Dumping Data Starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000 I don’t know how much of the Nand you would need to erase for each partition..? So lucky I recored the install..😊 I be uploading soon once I have edited it. This is just guess work don’t know if it would work, need someone who knows about the code. If I manage to flash the Amstrad Firmware back and it works then you be able to flash any E3 firmware this way so even with one with the config change on it.

There is info here how to flash to mtd .. https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,16789,16800https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Feur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fforum.doozan.com%2Fread.php%3F3%252c16789%252c16800%26data%3D02%257c01%257c%257c43dd69f306b24fa4d01308d6bf7526b0%257c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%257c1%257c0%257c636906907207602767%26sdata%3Dl0A1sVMwvXx2BYpNyQBhS72Osn%2F%252BKERDRDUddCciVB8%253D%26reserved%3D0&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9e77728c4b964d7c249608d6c05b1f98%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636907894932883709&sdata=2%2B12YTPjS2b4AIgYs5ITr7bSUACkrz5lUYqq9GTPeEU%3D&reserved=0

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎10 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Oh one more thing.. the USB memory stick,does it matter if its fat or fat32 formatted to copy the 6 files over to it,it don’t say in the Readme..?

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎12‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎02 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

“When it flash's Linux to the E3 it only uses partitions mtd0,mtd1,mtd3 and mtd4, so mtd2 and mtd3 is not used.”

mtd0 - kernel mtd1 - PBL ( Maybe, I say this because Uboot is flashed there.) mtd3 - ldr ( File System..? uses mtdblock3 of mtd3) mtd4 - Root( Root File System,maybe ?? uses mtdblock4 of mtd4)

What are mtd2 and mtd5 used for..??

Trying to find out what each Partition is used for?

Is the Amstrad Install Script running in a Ramdisk..?? You have 2 Uboot images the same, one for flashing the other on for the install so you made it a bit like FEL mode where you hold down the FEL Button and can boot into Uboot +ramdisk from you PC thought its usb cable that powers it then you can mount the system partition to get into files and folders, that's on TheC64 Mini. Most Developing Boards now have the FEL button.

Just trying to find out more ,it dumps the firmware into 6 partitions, when it dumps them, can they be put back the way they are or do they need to be converted, so what I am say, are they raw files so they can’t be used the way they are at the moment…?

You can backup your firmware with this script without installing Linux on the E3,you can say no to installing it, right..?? if so I will try and see if I can back the E3 up to get the 6 backup files.

P.S Have not done anything with my E2Plus yet, if I can backup its firmware and then flash it back then I can fix the dead E2s out there, but I need help. If I can backup its firmware I am willing to share it.But don’t worry my E2Plus is going no where.. 😊 Just been looking at you page Ralph,One of the problem with the E2 is it don’t run Linux, I am trying to find out more about its firmware at the moment. The E1 and E2 use the same Firmware and same CPU Sharp LH79531 ARM (L136 00B), the only difference in them is the Plus had ZX Spectrum games. So I might be able to use the firmware from the E2 on the E1. The E3 had a different CPU because it need a MMU for the Colour LCD screen so need to be more powerful than the E1,E2.

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You'd need to look into what pbltool is seeking and not finding. But as long as you're still getting PBL printing out its banner, it's there and willing to alter the main flash memory for you.

I don’t know what I need to do next and how to find out what pbltool is looking for..? I don’t know anything about pbltool,I only run it in the V2 release of E3 Linux to install it. Can you please help. Thanks.

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎14‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎50 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

On Putty it just comes up with this and that's it.. “Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*” Dam have to buy another one now.

I agree with David; PBL survives, by design, and you can try again.

You later write:

Its lights flash when you plug it in and thats it pbltool says probbing and nothing else...?

You'd need to look into what pbltool is seeking and not finding. But as long as you're still getting PBL printing out its banner, it's there and willing to alter the main flash memory for you.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

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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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 http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/E3_release_v2.tar.gz,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 span1922@live.com *Sent:* ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎17‎:‎11 *To:* Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software e3-hacking@earth.li

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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e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking

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 Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎16‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎03 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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 Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎59 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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.commailto: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 herehttps://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/E3_release_v2.tar.gz&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca81b3b1bffcd45d3586508d6c241f55d%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636909985870739791&sdata=ZNxcj1BbEU60rSiE%2B0W3aTIcQp/dUzU2AKifheWowB0%3D&reserved=0,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 Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎17‎:‎11 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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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-- ┌─── http://www.cowlark.comhttps://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://www.cowlark.com&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca81b3b1bffcd45d3586508d6c241f55d%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636909985870749808&sdata=0Z9fYaQT6opZ8zIjD990MAh0RSu8kSY3GZp8/DbSQB4%3D&reserved=0 ─── │ "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my │ telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out │ how to use my telephone." --- Bjarne Stroustrup

Got to just find out how to mount a mtd partition with the system on it, then that file (delta_e_live.config) will be in there somewhere…😊

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎16‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎04 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Just bought another one but Good News is that its working and Activated so hopefully be able to get the delta_e_live.config from it. If the emailer is activated then the file is in the system, when it deactivated then the file has been deleted.

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎16‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎03 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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 Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎59 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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.commailto: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 herehttps://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/E3_release_v2.tar.gz&data=02%7c01%7c%7cc5291e35571543ca34c408d6c26c1fe0%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636910166973216848&sdata=aaN9t11isvaBv31NMEoD0szYuWlnbrIxgkBncakToEs%3D&reserved=0,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 Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎17‎:‎11 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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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-- ┌─── http://www.cowlark.comhttps://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://www.cowlark.com&data=02%7c01%7c%7cc5291e35571543ca34c408d6c26c1fe0%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636910166973246876&sdata=2wtvPbdlB2jZ4gQYMwpTS2d8wA1ffyMKR5mx%2BQS%2BcK0%3D&reserved=0 ─── │ "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my │ telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out │ how to use my telephone." --- Bjarne Stroustrup

Nick,

If possible, could you remove me from the E3 mailing lists. My mother is ill at the moment and I’m watching the email on my phone for updates, so I’m trying to exclude non-essential emails.

Thank you and best wishes with the E3 work.

James

James Doherty

On 16 Apr 2019, at 21:25, Nick Griffin <span1922@live.commailto:span1922@live.com> wrote:

Here is the backup to my E3 original Firmware,6 files are zipped up in a zip file. download it herehttps://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Fopen%3Fid%3D1oAZ5oUuoHOttOP0neAN3RMQoy0Hu7LfK&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cd7a05748fd5045154b2908d6c2a999a8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636910431025839954&sdata=eKFtMXORKCLYcE2T2B77xR6BHS36RUsNGDK2t4ZCKTI%3D&reserved=0.. Maybe someone might find it useful..😊 This is not activated but someone might be able to extract the OS from it and get there E3 partly working again. I sheared this so you can have a play with it, if you want. Remember that it has bad blocks too so they need to be removed or data need extracted ,you can’t flash it to the E3 the way it is, It will not work, the biggest file, e3-nand-backup.4 is the OS it 27.8mb.

e3-nand-backup.0 is 360mb,e3-nand-backup.1 is 264kb, e3-nand-backup.2 is 264kb, e3-nand-backup.3 is 264kb, e3-nand-backup.4 is 27.8mb, e3-nand-backup.5 is 792kb.

Good luck with it.

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎16‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎20‎:‎45 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Got to just find out how to mount a mtd partition with the system on it, then that file (delta_e_live.config) will be in there somewhere…😊

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎16‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎04 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Just bought another one but Good News is that its working and Activated so hopefully be able to get the delta_e_live.config from it. If the emailer is activated then the file is in the system, when it deactivated then the file has been deleted.

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎16‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎03 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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 Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎59 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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.commailto: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 herehttps://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fthe.earth.li%2Fpub%2Fe3%2FE3_release_v2.tar.gz&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cd7a05748fd5045154b2908d6c2a999a8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636910431025849959&sdata=8RmdeUXNv3YoWp2Jkz2UScNPDjT9wVp3btU5F2nINUk%3D&reserved=0,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 Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎17‎:‎11 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

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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-- ┌─── http://www.cowlark.comhttps://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cowlark.com&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cd7a05748fd5045154b2908d6c2a999a8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636910431025869987&sdata=b8IzvYpw2641%2B1RVZ6XbHTkTbtpwwhjiFDQK7xspxKc%3D&reserved=0 ─── │ "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my │ telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out │ how to use my telephone." --- Bjarne Stroustrup _______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.limailto:e3-hacking@earth.li https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

Try to find out the block size for the mtd partitions for ​

#flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16 - don’t know what number 16 should be for each mtdx partition..?

Can someone help me please..??

Is the size where it says ending at 0x00380000 so what would the number be for it to erase the right amount of memory from the mtd partition..?

mtd0 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00380000...* mtd1 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd2 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000... mtd3 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00040000...* mtd4 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x01b00000...* mtd5 Block Size 16384,Page Size 512, 00B Size 16 Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x000c0000...

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From: Jonathan McDowellmailto:noodles@earth.li Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎17‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎26 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:28:03AM +0000, SJS Doherty wrote:

If possible, could you remove me from the E3 mailing lists. My mother is ill at the moment and I’m watching the email on my phone for updates, so I’m trying to exclude non-essential emails.

I've dealt with this, but in general if people want to modify their list settings they can + should do so themselves at:

https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

J.

-- I'm from the tax office. I'm here to take all your money.

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On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 07:45:20PM +0000, Nick Griffin wrote:

Got to just find out how to mount a mtd partition with the system on it, then that file (delta_e_live.config) will be in there somewhere…😊

I have a vague memory that the E3 used a read-only cramfs or similar filesystem for the actual OS/base application stuff, and then a custom filesystem (based on Q;Q; blocks in flash) for all the ads / games / ringtones / other content. I don't recall anyone spending time on working out how to modify that custom setup.

J.

Sorry forget to add.. Do you remember if you were able to mount the Cramfs and look at its filesystem..? What's Q;Q; blocks in flash, another files system…? Can’t find any info on it, were you able to mount that too. So does it have 2 partitions on mtd4 then..? At the time no one would of looked into the file system cos that would validate the rules on using the Emailer,It now matters cos there all are dead and If we can get to the config file, then maybe get other E3s working again, Amstrad had a 500+ page manual on it cos there could add things to the emaler like different oprtions and that to it,that config file was the heart to the system, Made everything tick.. 😊 without it its a dead machine.

Does anyone remember the command line to mount a mtd partition..?

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From: Jonathan McDowellmailto:noodles@earth.li Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎17‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎28 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 07:45:20PM +0000, Nick Griffin wrote:

Got to just find out how to mount a mtd partition with the system on it, then that file (delta_e_live.config) will be in there somewhere…😊

I have a vague memory that the E3 used a read-only cramfs or similar filesystem for the actual OS/base application stuff, and then a custom filesystem (based on Q;Q; blocks in flash) for all the ads / games / ringtones / other content. I don't recall anyone spending time on working out how to modify that custom setup.

J.

-- "I've checked, but I can't find anything in the bible which supports C++." -- Malcolm Ray

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Where do I put attached Python script, in my Linux not in the E3..?

So I do each file with it..?

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From: Jonathan McDowellmailto:noodles@earth.li Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎18‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎58 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 01:26:40PM +0000, Nick Griffin wrote:

Do you remember if you were able to mount the Cramfs and look at its filesystem..? What's Q;Q; blocks in flash, another files system…? Can’t find any info on it, were you able to mount that too. So does it have 2 partitions on mtd4 then..?

You need to remember the E3 dates from a time when embedded Linux systems were a lot simpler, and the E3 was designed to be a low cost platform (even allowing for the subsidy). It doesn't have the sort of NAND setup seen on modern systems; it simply didn't have the resources.

So, the MTD partitions do not directly map to a kernel or a Linux filesystem. The "Q;Q;" blocks are an Amstrad specific way of putting data into those partitions, with a type + description associated with each one. For example the kernel lives in a Q;Q; block in mtd3 called "LINUX". mtd3 also has Q;Q; blocks for LDR (the second stage boot loader), and PARMS (the kernel boot parameters).

The CRAMFS filesystem is in mtd4; Q;Q; block name "LNXFSYS". There are 2 of them (I imagine to allow for an active + fallback). There are various other bits of content in mtd4 too - you can see them by doing:

hexdump -C e3-nand-backup.4 | grep -A 1 "Q;Q;"

Finally the nanddump files have 16 bytes of out of band (OOB) data per 512 byte block, so if you want something that might be writable back to the flash you need to strip those out. The attached Python should do the trick:

nand-oob-strip e3-nand-backup.0 e3-nand.0

will dump out e3-nand.0 with the OOB data stripped.

J.

-- One-seventh of your life is | .''`. Debian GNU/Linux Developer spent on Monday. | : :' : Happy to accept PGP signed | `. `' or encrypted mail - RSA | `- key on the keyservers.

live@commodoreosmailto:live@commodoreos /media/live/E3 READY. sudo nand-oob-strip.py e3-nand-backup.0 e3-nand.0: No such file or directory

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http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Jonathan McDowellmailto:noodles@earth.li Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎18‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎21‎:‎09 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Yes, you run it on a proper Linux box, not the E3. The script isn't going to magically fix anything, but it'll turn the dumps that include OOB information into dumps without OOB information that might help you do some sleuthing about their contents.

On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 12:52:37PM +0000, Nick Griffin wrote:

Where do I put attached Python script, in my Linux not in the E3..?

So I do each file with it..?

Spanner..

From: Jonathan McDowellmailto:noodles@earth.li Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎18‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎58 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 01:26:40PM +0000, Nick Griffin wrote:

...

Do you remember if you were able to mount the Cramfs and look at its filesystem..? What's Q;Q; blocks in flash, another files system…? Can’t find any info on it, were you able to mount that too. So does it have 2 partitions on mtd4 then..?

You need to remember the E3 dates from a time when embedded Linux systems were a lot simpler, and the E3 was designed to be a low cost platform (even allowing for the subsidy). It doesn't have the sort of NAND setup seen on modern systems; it simply didn't have the resources.

So, the MTD partitions do not directly map to a kernel or a Linux filesystem. The "Q;Q;" blocks are an Amstrad specific way of putting data into those partitions, with a type + description associated with each one. For example the kernel lives in a Q;Q; block in mtd3 called "LINUX". mtd3 also has Q;Q; blocks for LDR (the second stage boot loader), and PARMS (the kernel boot parameters).

The CRAMFS filesystem is in mtd4; Q;Q; block name "LNXFSYS". There are 2 of them (I imagine to allow for an active + fallback). There are various other bits of content in mtd4 too - you can see them by doing:

hexdump -C e3-nand-backup.4 | grep -A 1 "Q;Q;"

Finally the nanddump files have 16 bytes of out of band (OOB) data per 512 byte block, so if you want something that might be writable back to the flash you need to strip those out. The attached Python should do the trick:

nand-oob-strip e3-nand-backup.0 e3-nand.0

will dump out e3-nand.0 with the OOB data stripped.

J.

-- I'm dangerous when I know what I'm doing.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

OK sorted it out now, (thanks to Ollie), will I be able to use these files to put the Amstrad firmware back on the E3 at all..?

question is here too http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/9/config-content-filesystem?...

You don’t need to register to reply or leave a new thread there now.

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎20‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎18‎:‎39 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

sudo nand-oob-strip.py e3-nand-backup.0 e3-nand.0: No such file or directory

Two things. You probably don't need sudo as your ordinary user should be able to read e3-nand-backup.0 and write e3-nand.0. You have to specify a path to the nand-oob-strip.py script for the shell to find it. Since it's in the current directory, that's just `.', i.e.

./nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

If that complains, then it's because ./nand-oob-strip.py lacks the `execute' permission for you. Either add it with chmod(1), or run the Python interpreter directly:

python3 nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

Alternatively, to modify the file in place, so ensure they're not your only copies, you can do

LC_ALL=C perl -i -0777pe 's/(.{512})(.{16})/$1/gs' \ e3-nand-backup.{0..5}

which substitutes every 512 bytes followed by 16 bytes with just the 512.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

It looks like the first emailer abit, its has the same layout ,see the keyboard at the bottom and uses the Pocket Dock IT too and has PB in its name like PBL for the Boot Loader, I guess that's where PBL came from.. weird, its called a Amstrad PB1500 and PB Stands for Phone Book. So Phone Book Loader…😊 well that makes sence,when you turn on the Emailer it loading up its phone book so you can make a call.. 😊 Phone Book is Address Book just another name for it.

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎21‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎40 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

I do wish I never flashed E3 Linux on it now,theres no point to it,you can’t put anything on it or run anything on it cos its too old and E3 Linux didn’t go anywhere, its just a command line version because the E3 is not powerful to run proper Linux. I installed E3 Linux release v2 (E3 Linux sound better that just Linux or release v2 this way you know what I am taking about)from the.earth.li/pub/e3/https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/&data=02%7c01%7c%7c840b4cbdc1144202f49908d6c645d49b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914400552286012&sdata=G0BDfgsHg/sYeCygQes4FwIOjf39Uy92wVNnDT20ZdI%3D&reserved=0 what are the rest of the stuff in there, can I update it to 2.6.19,its at 2.6.16 that what release v2 is…?

I would like to put a program on it so it shows images on it screen you have to make it on it and it don’t even have make on it to make a program so make need to be installed first. If I can’t put the original firmware back or put a program on it so it shows a animated gif then it useless and I will end up putting it in the bin. I have about 8 gifs of its old adverts and want to show them on the E3s screen, can anyone help me please. I am not used to installing programs from source code, I am use to installing it from a repository.

Oh and what happen to this… http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/7/support-status-updatehttps://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/7/support-status-update&data=02%7c01%7c%7c840b4cbdc1144202f49908d6c645d49b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914400552296023&sdata=Sz12Lx9X8WFByYU/vSme5aD2fP4oDx9mC%2BWoJgaTf5c%3D&reserved=0 why did the work on E3 Linux stop and only get to 2.6.19…?

and very interested in this bit at the end.. “BTW, my 12-bit framebuffer display support has been accepted and included in mplayer svn revision 31139 on May 6th. Using it, I can enjoy a prescaled 422x316 5fps MSMPEG-4 encoded live video stream playing fluently in fullscreen mode on my E3 display.”

Leave a reply in there and tell us what happened to E3 Linux 2.6.34..

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎20‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎25 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

OK sorted it out now, (thanks to Ollie), will I be able to use these files to put the Amstrad firmware back on the E3 at all..?

question is here too http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/9/config-content-filesystem?...https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/9/config-content-filesystem?page%3D1%26scrollTo%3D92&data=02%7c01%7c%7c840b4cbdc1144202f49908d6c645d49b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914400552306028&sdata=0qVbgCV4iqyAupGIKOwRmIhBCVM2drsvfy3XHjl%2BSzw%3D&reserved=0

You don’t need to register to reply or leave a new thread there now.

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎20‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎18‎:‎39 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

sudo nand-oob-strip.py e3-nand-backup.0 e3-nand.0: No such file or directory

Two things. You probably don't need sudo as your ordinary user should be able to read e3-nand-backup.0 and write e3-nand.0. You have to specify a path to the nand-oob-strip.py script for the shell to find it. Since it's in the current directory, that's just `.', i.e.

./nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

If that complains, then it's because ./nand-oob-strip.py lacks the `execute' permission for you. Either add it with chmod(1), or run the Python interpreter directly:

python3 nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

Alternatively, to modify the file in place, so ensure they're not your only copies, you can do

LC_ALL=C perl -i -0777pe 's/(.{512})(.{16})/$1/gs' \ e3-nand-backup.{0..5}

which substitutes every 512 bytes followed by 16 bytes with just the 512.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

What the ams-delta mini distribution ..? Which one do I download… https://www.imagemagick.org/script/download.php and how do I install it on the E3..?

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From: David Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎21‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎19‎:‎41 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

If you just want to put images onto the screen, write a tiny script that copies files from the USB stick and cats them to /dev/fb0. Converting images to the right format's a little bit harder but I wouldn't be surprised if ImageMagick could do it out of the box. That'll run happily in the ams-delta mini distribution.

Alternatively, you can boot an old Debian from a USB stick using that kernel --- although you'll need to hunt around to find a userland old enough; I think Debian woody works. That'll give you a (very slow) development system running on the E3 itself. Then you can write your own SDL programs to draw whatever you like, although I should warn you against extended typing on that keyboard unless you hate your fingers.

On Sun, 21 Apr 2019 at 12:40, Nick Griffin <span1922@live.commailto:span1922@live.com> wrote: I do wish I never flashed E3 Linux on it now,theres no point to it,you can’t put anything on it or run anything on it cos its too old and E3 Linux didn’t go anywhere, its just a command line version because the E3 is not powerful to run proper Linux. I installed E3 Linux release v2 (E3 Linux sound better that just Linux or release v2 this way you know what I am taking about)from the.earth.li/pub/e3/https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca0b9c24dc4674add1b8b08d6c688ee6f%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914688762358339&sdata=FOzBMM3LtY1wHF6x7%2BBQNWYAGuV5iYw7lbtnVBH6OTk%3D&reserved=0 what are the rest of the stuff in there, can I update it to 2.6.19,its at 2.6.16 that what release v2 is…?

I would like to put a program on it so it shows images on it screen you have to make it on it and it don’t even have make on it to make a program so make need to be installed first. If I can’t put the original firmware back or put a program on it so it shows a animated gif then it useless and I will end up putting it in the bin. I have about 8 gifs of its old adverts and want to show them on the E3s screen, can anyone help me please. I am not used to installing programs from source code, I am use to installing it from a repository.

Oh and what happen to this… http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/7/support-status-updatehttps://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/7/support-status-update&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca0b9c24dc4674add1b8b08d6c688ee6f%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914688762378349&sdata=NXv3LlBFMP0bxp1Ool7i0X0cLJG6yYCDwj0OeESE7AI%3D&reserved=0 why did the work on E3 Linux stop and only get to 2.6.19…?

and very interested in this bit at the end.. “BTW, my 12-bit framebuffer display support has been accepted and included in mplayer svn revision 31139 on May 6th. Using it, I can enjoy a prescaled 422x316 5fps MSMPEG-4 encoded live video stream playing fluently in fullscreen mode on my E3 display.”

Leave a reply in there and tell us what happened to E3 Linux 2.6.34..

Spanner..

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎20‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎25 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

OK sorted it out now, (thanks to Ollie), will I be able to use these files to put the Amstrad firmware back on the E3 at all..?

question is here too http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/9/config-content-filesystem?...https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/9/config-content-filesystem?page%3D1%26scrollTo%3D92&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca0b9c24dc4674add1b8b08d6c688ee6f%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914688762398366&sdata=5OC%2BRe0pVyTRImDzqgh5EffiWn%2BP%2BVFM88xPc5sCT1c%3D&reserved=0

You don’t need to register to reply or leave a new thread there now.

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎20‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎18‎:‎39 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

sudo nand-oob-strip.py e3-nand-backup.0 e3-nand.0: No such file or directory

Two things. You probably don't need sudo as your ordinary user should be able to read e3-nand-backup.0 and write e3-nand.0. You have to specify a path to the nand-oob-strip.py script for the shell to find it. Since it's in the current directory, that's just `.', i.e.

./nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

If that complains, then it's because ./nand-oob-strip.py lacks the `execute' permission for you. Either add it with chmod(1), or run the Python interpreter directly:

python3 nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

Alternatively, to modify the file in place, so ensure they're not your only copies, you can do

LC_ALL=C perl -i -0777pe 's/(.{512})(.{16})/$1/gs' \ e3-nand-backup.{0..5}

which substitutes every 512 bytes followed by 16 bytes with just the 512.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.limailto:e3-hacking@earth.li https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca0b9c24dc4674add1b8b08d6c688ee6f%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914688762418382&sdata=RdVAHRoazYlT/JmyzsIjYtDnjHKATRWJH/ajeZfZplc%3D&reserved=0 _______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.limailto:e3-hacking@earth.li https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hackinghttps://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca0b9c24dc4674add1b8b08d6c688ee6f%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914688762428393&sdata=3vwoSxqdvz55lqVCv4VM4ResEDyH7J9oRa%2BZbE28/mg%3D&reserved=0

-- ┌─── http://www.cowlark.comhttps://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://www.cowlark.com&data=02%7c01%7c%7ca0b9c24dc4674add1b8b08d6c688ee6f%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914688762438399&sdata=GdboSf%2Bcx4vDx2CqT3gSKUcHpcfCI43tN3ZesHYKAXg%3D&reserved=0 ─── │ "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my │ telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out │ how to use my telephone." --- Bjarne Stroustrup

OK so converting the gif to something maybe like in a video format or something, I don’t know, I won't know where to start, I never scripted stuff in Linux before, I am not a coder,I have played around with scripts in Linux but easy stuff,this is way over my head,I need a step by step instructions on how to do it,Once I am showed I will,remember how,I understand reading the file from the USB stick ,but I not got a clue how to do it,If this is possible we might of found something to do with it,you wouldn’t just be able to show the adverts on the screen you would able to show anything on it, It would be good as a image viewer and a video player. You could get it to show the adverts and have it a display model of what the emailer was like so you could show parts of what the menu was like to if you wanted but would have to make the image of the menu to show, the adverts are very easy to make, you could make them yourself, or make a slideshow of your own pictures and videos on the screen.

But I need someone who knows how to do scripting in Linux because I don’t know how. I played around with the scripts in Commodore OS but they are really simply ones and nothing like this, If anyone has some spear time and would like to help I would really appreciate it.

Thanks..

Spanner.. PS… Dose anyone know what was used to make the Main Software (The GUI) on the E3,I want to add it to the page on Wikipedia..? (Phone Book Loader….HAHAHA that makes me laugh but dose make sense.. 😊.) Looking forward to my new ish Amstrad E3 coming and E1 too.. I have the whole set now..😊 When E3 comes I be copying it firmware and sharing it because its activated so has the .confg file still on it. its will properly operate for 3 Months before deactivating and removing the config file. Someone has to just find a why be able to flash it back properly.

I am good at thinking up ideas but have a problem of making them a reality.. 😊 http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: David Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎21‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎23‎:‎05 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

You wouldn't run imagemagick on the E3 itself. (Apart from anything else the E3 distribution is, IIRC, something based on OpenEmbedded/Angstrom and is very hard to get software for?) You'd run it on a PC and use it to convert files to put on a USB stick, and then use simple scripting on the E3 to draw them on the screen.

That said, I remember the E3 framebuffer format to be pretty weird, so you may be better off writing a program (on a PC) to do some kind of custom conversion. fbset on the E3 should tell you the exact format.

On Sun, 21 Apr 2019 at 23:45, Nick Griffin <span1922@live.commailto:span1922@live.com> wrote: What the ams-delta mini distribution ..? Which one do I download… https://www.imagemagick.org/script/download.phphttps://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.imagemagick.org/script/download.php&data=02%7c01%7c%7c1884cbd3e3714908d56e08d6c6a5825b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914811491696574&sdata=aHJgcEqUtJC3i7OzT1atOz9D3rblq0Dytc95jvLXl/4%3D&reserved=0 and how do I install it on the E3..?

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From: David Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎21‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎19‎:‎41 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

If you just want to put images onto the screen, write a tiny script that copies files from the USB stick and cats them to /dev/fb0. Converting images to the right format's a little bit harder but I wouldn't be surprised if ImageMagick could do it out of the box. That'll run happily in the ams-delta mini distribution.

Alternatively, you can boot an old Debian from a USB stick using that kernel --- although you'll need to hunt around to find a userland old enough; I think Debian woody works. That'll give you a (very slow) development system running on the E3 itself. Then you can write your own SDL programs to draw whatever you like, although I should warn you against extended typing on that keyboard unless you hate your fingers.

On Sun, 21 Apr 2019 at 12:40, Nick Griffin <span1922@live.commailto:span1922@live.com> wrote: I do wish I never flashed E3 Linux on it now,theres no point to it,you can’t put anything on it or run anything on it cos its too old and E3 Linux didn’t go anywhere, its just a command line version because the E3 is not powerful to run proper Linux. I installed E3 Linux release v2 (E3 Linux sound better that just Linux or release v2 this way you know what I am taking about)from the.earth.li/pub/e3/https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/&data=02%7c01%7c%7c1884cbd3e3714908d56e08d6c6a5825b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914811491716590&sdata=WhRGFTM%2Bj7BOhOgH9a6MOCgfC5EM%2BFGaM%2B4pBZ5R0ZA%3D&reserved=0 what are the rest of the stuff in there, can I update it to 2.6.19,its at 2.6.16 that what release v2 is…?

I would like to put a program on it so it shows images on it screen you have to make it on it and it don’t even have make on it to make a program so make need to be installed first. If I can’t put the original firmware back or put a program on it so it shows a animated gif then it useless and I will end up putting it in the bin. I have about 8 gifs of its old adverts and want to show them on the E3s screen, can anyone help me please. I am not used to installing programs from source code, I am use to installing it from a repository.

Oh and what happen to this… http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/7/support-status-updatehttps://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/7/support-status-update&data=02%7c01%7c%7c1884cbd3e3714908d56e08d6c6a5825b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914811491726595&sdata=rS6frR9nj3Dw6Uk401ios9A7ClAg%2Beb7FCz3JxtqjeI%3D&reserved=0 why did the work on E3 Linux stop and only get to 2.6.19…?

and very interested in this bit at the end.. “BTW, my 12-bit framebuffer display support has been accepted and included in mplayer svn revision 31139 on May 6th. Using it, I can enjoy a prescaled 422x316 5fps MSMPEG-4 encoded live video stream playing fluently in fullscreen mode on my E3 display.”

Leave a reply in there and tell us what happened to E3 Linux 2.6.34..

Spanner..

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎20‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎25 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

OK sorted it out now, (thanks to Ollie), will I be able to use these files to put the Amstrad firmware back on the E3 at all..?

question is here too http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/9/config-content-filesystem?...https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net/thread/9/config-content-filesystem?page%3D1%26scrollTo%3D92&data=02%7c01%7c%7c1884cbd3e3714908d56e08d6c6a5825b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914811491756622&sdata=WnQymjcLXaV8GN2ieI9cD77vbv%2BwNd3zNhlEWCCtysc%3D&reserved=0

You don’t need to register to reply or leave a new thread there now.

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎20‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎18‎:‎39 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

sudo nand-oob-strip.py e3-nand-backup.0 e3-nand.0: No such file or directory

Two things. You probably don't need sudo as your ordinary user should be able to read e3-nand-backup.0 and write e3-nand.0. You have to specify a path to the nand-oob-strip.py script for the shell to find it. Since it's in the current directory, that's just `.', i.e.

./nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

If that complains, then it's because ./nand-oob-strip.py lacks the `execute' permission for you. Either add it with chmod(1), or run the Python interpreter directly:

python3 nand-oob-strip.py in.0 out.0

Alternatively, to modify the file in place, so ensure they're not your only copies, you can do

LC_ALL=C perl -i -0777pe 's/(.{512})(.{16})/$1/gs' \ e3-nand-backup.{0..5}

which substitutes every 512 bytes followed by 16 bytes with just the 512.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.limailto:e3-hacking@earth.li https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking&data=02%7c01%7c%7c1884cbd3e3714908d56e08d6c6a5825b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914811491776638&sdata=1UdPGdiwOHk1qx4H7xsGqKP7Z%2BCq01UV%2BROo2d0BYyk%3D&reserved=0 _______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.limailto:e3-hacking@earth.li https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hackinghttps://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking&data=02%7c01%7c%7c1884cbd3e3714908d56e08d6c6a5825b%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636914811491786643&sdata=Iw94CN0xg6f%2Bj9sILhvGo82SoHXW%2BOK9mhHLaFqFjYw%3D&reserved=0

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Hi Nick,

Does anyone want the E3 adverts, they are not big, there are 7 of them in gif format they are the same size as the screen on the E3 is 480x320, I can upload them

Yes, do that, e.g. to Dropbox like with the other files. I expect I'm not the only one to squirrel stuff away so copies live on.

The post is called Support status updatehttps://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=e3-hacking@earth.li&q=subject:%22%5C%5BE3%5C-hacking%5C%5D+Support+status+update%22&o=newest and posted by Janusz Krzysztofikand its its here https://www.mail-archive.com/e3-hacking@earth.li/msg00189.html

Where could you download it from..?

Janusz Krzysztofikhttps://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=e3-hacking@earth.li&q=from:%22Janusz+Krzysztofik%22 Mon, 17 May 2010 13:35:30 -0700https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=e3-hacking@earth.li&q=date:20100517

Hi,

As linux-2.6.34 is out, a few words on what's new regarding our E3's.

Modem support and dependant audio mixer functionality, that got broken in 2.6.33, have been corrected and should work again.

Contrast control has been added (not extremely usefull, but just for completeness). You should be able to play with it by writing to /sys/class/lcd/omapfb/contrast and /sys/class/lcd/omapfb/lcd_power. Unfortunatelly, I failed to get the updated ams_delta_defconfig included, so you have to select this manually for now:

Device Drivers ---> Graphics support ---> [*] Backlight & LCD device support ---> <*> Lowlevel LCD controls

For the same reason, you may have to make more corrections to the default configuration if you would still like to use the new kernel together with old installation tools, otherwise the resulting uImage would probably be too big. Try these changes that got accepted too late for inclusion:

General setup ---> RCU Subsystem ---> RCU Implementation ---> (X) Preemptable tree-based hierarchical RCU

[*] Enable the block layer ---> [ ] Support for large (2TB+) block devices and files

Kernel hacking ---> [ ] Verbose BUG() reporting (adds 70K)

That's all for 2.6.34. The long awaited external keyboard support is already present in linux-omap and should appear in mainline as soon as 2.6.35-rc1 is out.

BTW, my 12-bit framebuffer display support has been accepted and included in mplayer svn revision 31139 on May 6th. Using it, I can enjoy a prescaled 422x316 5fps MSMPEG-4 encoded live video stream playing fluently in fullscreen mode on my E3 display.

Thanks, Janusz

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

Hi Nick,

its just a command line version because the E3 is not powerful to run proper Linux.

Linux as you know it is three main parts. There's the kernel, that's what Linux really is, and it talks to the hardware. Atop of that are the user-space programs, like the shell, ls(1), etc. They give you the command line that many of us appreciate. And then a bunch of user-space programs can together provide a graphical environment with windows, menus, etc.; a `desktop', like Gnome, or XFCE. Linux distributions bundle those all up together.

So the E3 is powerful enough to run a Linux kernel, but doesn't have enough memory to run a modern version, just as Intel 386 processors are no longer supported.

If I can’t put the original firmware back

That should be possible as you have the files, now without their 16 bytes per 512 bytes overhead. You need to work out how many blocks to erase based on the size of each file you're trying to put back. IIRC I pointed out a block is the unit of erasure and it's 16 KiB.

Is this right,I have just did this on my calculator 3584(KB) Divided by 16(KB) = 224 so 16 goes into it 224 times then it needs 224 blocks to be deleted..??

Spanner..

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎23‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎18‎:‎25 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Yeah I know Linux runs from its Kernel,it has a 2.6.19 kernel, without the kernel there be on Linux.. 😊 ,Windows has a kernel too.

I don't understand how to erase the blocks, I was never good at Maths that why I am not a programmer, I have Autism but am dyslexic too so need things said to me step by step otherwise I don’t understand.

...

If I can’t put the original firmware back

That should be possible as you have the files, now without their 16 bytes per 512 bytes overhead. You need to work out how many blocks to erase based on the size of each file you're trying to put back. IIRC I pointed out a block is the unit of erasure and it's 16 KiB.

So e3-nand.0 is 3584 KB so how many blocks go into it…? so how many times dose 16KB going in to 3584KB…?? I don’t know..?? I can’t divide. Iam a bit ok on Add not brilliant at Times but can’t do Divide. I was crap a Maths,I left school in 87,32 years ago… 😊 I got a 5 for Maths. that's a E ,…lol

Could you work it out for me, I do not know how too..?

How do I know how many files there are in each image(mtd0,1,2,3,4,5) and what size they are, you can’t open it like a normal partition, Dam Amstrad this will take forever…lol ☹

I be copying and sharing the firmware from my new E3 I am waiting for it to arrive, its activated.

My plan is to flash the copy of the firmware every time the E3 deactivates itself to activate it again, hopefully for 3 months,you see… 😊 ? My plan is to get all E3 working, well to the point you can use the Phone, Address Book and Answer Machine and that.

I still think the firmware needs hacking…😊 if we could get in and edit the Delta_e_live.config you could open up the whole system, that file configs the emailer so Amstrad could added different options in Setup(Setup Button) too that file so they show up, that's why some options in Setup only has like 1,2,3 options because the rest is hidden.

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎23‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎14‎:‎27 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

its just a command line version because the E3 is not powerful to run proper Linux.

Linux as you know it is three main parts. There's the kernel, that's what Linux really is, and it talks to the hardware. Atop of that are the user-space programs, like the shell, ls(1), etc. They give you the command line that many of us appreciate. And then a bunch of user-space programs can together provide a graphical environment with windows, menus, etc.; a `desktop', like Gnome, or XFCE. Linux distributions bundle those all up together.

So the E3 is powerful enough to run a Linux kernel, but doesn't have enough memory to run a modern version, just as Intel 386 processors are no longer supported.

If I can’t put the original firmware back

That should be possible as you have the files, now without their 16 bytes per 512 bytes overhead. You need to work out how many blocks to erase based on the size of each file you're trying to put back. IIRC I pointed out a block is the unit of erasure and it's 16 KiB.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

The E3 is based on an ARM reference design, isn't it? What's the feasibility of emulating one?

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 at 11:46, Ralph Corderoy ralph@inputplus.co.uk wrote:

Hi Nick,

...

...

That should be possible as you have the files, now without their 16 bytes per 512 bytes overhead. You need to work out how many blocks to erase based on the size of each file you're trying to put back. IIRC I pointed out a block is the unit of erasure and it's 16 KiB.

So e3-nand.0 is 3584 KB so how many blocks go into it…? so how many times dose 16KB going in to 3584KB…?? I don’t know..?? I can’t divide. Iam a bit ok on Add not brilliant at Times but can’t do Divide.

Having stripped the excess OOB data, I have these sizes for each file in bytes.

 3670016  e3-nand-backup.0
  262144  e3-nand-backup.1
  262144  e3-nand-backup.2
  262144  e3-nand-backup.3
28311552  e3-nand-backup.4
  786432  e3-nand-backup.5

You're right, 3,670,016 B is 3,584 KiB because 3,670,016 / 1,024 = 3,584 so 1,024 goes into 3,670,016 exactly 3,584 times.

But the size of the erase block is 16 KiB which is 16 * 1,024 = 16,384 so we want to know how many times 16,384 goes into 3,670,016. 3,670,016 / 16,384 = 224 224 is what you worked out in your other email.

Taking those six sizes above and repeating the same sum gives

 3,670,016 / 16,384 =   224
   262,144 / 16,384 =    16
   262,144 / 16,384 =    16
   262,144 / 16,384 =    16
28,311,552 / 16,384 = 1,728
   786,432 / 16,384 =    48

Now I haven't been carefully following along how to extract e3-nand-backup.* in the first place, and how to write them back. I'm aware there's a script involved and a command where one of the parameters is the number of 16 KiB blocks to erase. Hopefully, plugging in those numbers above for each of the matching areas will work, but it's your responsibility whether to go ahead as you're the one actually doing all this; I've just been sitting at a keyboard. :-)

-- Cheers, Ralph.

---

e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking

This is the code I made for it… so if anyone wants to try it on theres,you can’t damge the E3 doing it,if it don’t work it will not get past the PBL line,lucky they put PBL on the nor flash you can’t brick it..😊 if it don’t work just when using the Pbltool put -n in the line to stop it from “Probbing” and “handshaking” because it will not find PBL V4.9 otherwise. And say “Probbing” forever.. 😊 and not find anything.

You have to put the script on the USB Stick and run it from it on the E3 for it to work.

so .. cd /media/sda1/ ams-delta-of-install

The code… -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#!/bin/sh

if (! grep -q /dev/sda1 /proc/mounts); then echo "No install media mounted; couldn't find /dev/sda in /proc/mounts" exit 1; fi

echo

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

read i

if [ ! "x$i" = "xy" -a ! "x$i" = "xY" ]; then echo echo Aborting. exit 1 fi

echo echo Starting restore.. This might take a while...

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand.0 ]; then echo Found e3-nand.0 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd0" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 224 echo " Writing e3-nand.0 4mb to /dev/mtd0" nandwrite /dev/mtd0 /media/sda1/e3-nand.0 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand.1 ]; then echo Found e3-nand.1 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd1" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.1 264kb to /dev/mtd1" nandwrite /dev/mtd1 /media/sda1/e3-nand.1 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand.2 ]; then echo Found e3-nand.2 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd2" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.2 264kb to /dev/mtd2" nandwrite /dev/mtd2 /media/sda1/e3-nand.2 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand.3 ]; then echo Found e3-nand.3 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd3" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.3 264kb to /dev/mtd3" nandwrite /dev/mtd3 /media/sda1/e3-nand.3 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand.4 ]; then echo Found e3-nand.4 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd4" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 1728 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.4 32 mb to /dev/mtd4" nandwrite /dev/mtd4 /media/sda1/e3-nand.4 fi

if [ -e /media/sda1/e3-nand.5 ]; then echo Found e3-nand.5 echo " Erasing /dev/mtd5" flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 48 echo " Writing e3-nand-backup.5 792kb to /dev/mtd5" nandwrite /dev/mtd5 /media/sda1/e3-nand.5 fi

echo "Finished restoring the Amstrad E3 Firmware," echo "Type Reboot or unplug E3 to see if the Amstrad E3 Splash Screen” echo "comes up (Fingers Crossed) If not just reinstall E3 Linux with the" echo "pbltool with the -n in the line to stop Handshaking otherwise it will" echo "not find PBL V4.9 Build:1311 bootloader."

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎14 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Thanks btw Ralph.. 😊

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From: David Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎10‎:‎50 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

The E3 is based on an ARM reference design, isn't it? What's the feasibility of emulating one?

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 at 11:46, Ralph Corderoy <ralph@inputplus.co.ukmailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk> wrote: Hi Nick,

...

That should be possible as you have the files, now without their 16 bytes per 512 bytes overhead. You need to work out how many blocks to erase based on the size of each file you're trying to put back. IIRC I pointed out a block is the unit of erasure and it's 16 KiB.

So e3-nand.0 is 3584 KB so how many blocks go into it…? so how many times dose 16KB going in to 3584KB…?? I don’t know..?? I can’t divide. Iam a bit ok on Add not brilliant at Times but can’t do Divide.

Having stripped the excess OOB data, I have these sizes for each file in bytes.

3670016 e3-nand-backup.0 262144 e3-nand-backup.1 262144 e3-nand-backup.2 262144 e3-nand-backup.3 28311552 e3-nand-backup.4 786432 e3-nand-backup.5

You're right, 3,670,016 B is 3,584 KiB because 3,670,016 / 1,024 = 3,584 so 1,024 goes into 3,670,016 exactly 3,584 times.

But the size of the erase block is 16 KiB which is 16 * 1,024 = 16,384 so we want to know how many times 16,384 goes into 3,670,016. 3,670,016 / 16,384 = 224 224 is what you worked out in your other email.

Taking those six sizes above and repeating the same sum gives

3,670,016 / 16,384 = 224 262,144 / 16,384 = 16 262,144 / 16,384 = 16 262,144 / 16,384 = 16 28,311,552 / 16,384 = 1,728 786,432 / 16,384 = 48

Now I haven't been carefully following along how to extract e3-nand-backup.* in the first place, and how to write them back. I'm aware there's a script involved and a command where one of the parameters is the number of 16 KiB blocks to erase. Hopefully, plugging in those numbers above for each of the matching areas will work, but it's your responsibility whether to go ahead as you're the one actually doing all this; I've just been sitting at a keyboard. :-)

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.limailto:e3-hacking@earth.li https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hackinghttps://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking&data=02%7c01%7c%7c69c6e14295c74042cbee08d6c89da440%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636916976717334364&sdata=H8JmqamoTJhIAa7TQhXCgsEi3PcAkEvrW%2Bay%2BXLRoX8%3D&reserved=0

-- ┌─── http://www.cowlark.comhttps://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://www.cowlark.com&data=02%7c01%7c%7c69c6e14295c74042cbee08d6c89da440%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636916976717344381&sdata=Abpjta6/p30KJcUM%2B0iv7RleOUP1AKBymsAfb1mhhSI%3D&reserved=0 ─── │ "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my │ telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out │ how to use my telephone." --- Bjarne Stroustrup

is this right…??

perhaps_write_flash() { p=${1?} erase=${2?} f=/media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.$p dev=/dev/mtd$p

test -e $f || return

echo found $f echo erasing $erase on $dev flash_erase $dev 0 $erase echo writing flash nandwrite -on $dev $f }

perhaps_write_flash 0 224 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 1728 perhaps_write_flash 0 48

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎55 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 224

...

flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16

It always mtd0. There's too much repetition in the code so errors like this are likely to creep in. Consider the approach I suggested in https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth.... Then the `0' of mtd0, etc., it only typed once.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

New code I don’t know if this is right…??

#!/bin/sh

if (! grep -q /dev/sda1 /proc/mounts); then echo "No install media mounted; couldn't find /dev/sda in /proc/mounts" exit 1; fi

echo

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

read i

if [ ! "x$i" = "xy" -a ! "x$i" = "xY" ]; then echo echo Aborting. exit 1 fi

echo echo Starting restore.. This might take a while...

perhaps_write_flash() { p=${1?} erase=${2?} f=/media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.$p dev=/dev/mtd$p

test -e $f || return

echo found $f echo erasing $erase on $dev flash_erase $dev 0 $erase echo writing flash nandwrite -on $dev $f }

perhaps_write_flash 0 224 perhaps_write_flash 1 16 perhaps_write_flash 2 16 perhaps_write_flash 3 16 perhaps_write_flash 4 1728 perhaps_write_flash 5 48

echo "Finished restoring the Amstrad E3 Firmware," echo "Type Reboot or unplug E3 to see if the Amstrad E3 Splash Screen" echo "comes up (Fingers Crossed) If not just reinstall E3 Linux with the" echo "pbltool with the -n in the line to stop Handshaking otherwise it will" echo "not find PBL V4.9 Build:1311 bootloader."

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎12‎:‎32 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Or is this part … perhaps like this… lol

perhaps_write_flash 0 224 perhaps_write_flash 1 16 perhaps_write_flash 2 16 perhaps_write_flash 3 16 perhaps_write_flash 4 1728 perhaps_write_flash 5 48

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎12‎:‎08 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

is this right…??

perhaps_write_flash() { p=${1?} erase=${2?} f=/media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.$p dev=/dev/mtd$p

test -e $f || return

echo found $f echo erasing $erase on $dev flash_erase $dev 0 $erase echo writing flash nandwrite -on $dev $f }

perhaps_write_flash 0 224 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 1728 perhaps_write_flash 0 48

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎55 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 224

...

flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16

It always mtd0. There's too much repetition in the code so errors like this are likely to creep in. Consider the approach I suggested in https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth.... Then the `0' of mtd0, etc., it only typed once.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

Changed…

#!/bin/sh

if (! grep -q /dev/sda1 /proc/mounts); then echo "No install media mounted; couldn't find /dev/sda in /proc/mounts" exit 1; fi

echo

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

read i

if [ ! "x$i" = "xy" -a ! "x$i" = "xY" ]; then echo echo Aborting. exit 1 fi

echo echo Starting restore.. This might take a while...

perhaps_write_flash() { p=${1?} erase=${2?} f=/media/sda1/e3-nand.$p dev=/dev/mtd$p

test -e $f || return

echo found $f echo erasing $erase on $dev flash_erase $dev 0 $erase echo writing flash nandwrite -on $dev $f }

perhaps_write_flash 0 224 perhaps_write_flash 1 16 perhaps_write_flash 2 16 perhaps_write_flash 3 16 perhaps_write_flash 4 1728 perhaps_write_flash 5 48

echo "Finished restoring the Amstrad E3 Firmware," echo "Type Reboot or unplug E3 to see if the Amstrad E3 Splash Screen" echo "comes up (Fingers Crossed) If not just reinstall E3 Linux with the" echo "pbltool with the -n in the line to stop Handshaking otherwise it will" echo "not find PBL V4.9 Build:1311 bootloader."

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎12‎:‎48 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

is this right…??

perhaps_write_flash() { p=${1?} erase=${2?} f=/media/sda1/e3-nand-backup.$p dev=/dev/mtd$p

test -e $f || return

echo found $f
echo erasing $erase on $dev
flash_erase $dev 0 $erase
echo writing flash
nandwrite -on $dev $f

}

That bit is.

perhaps_write_flash 0 224 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 16 perhaps_write_flash 0 1728 perhaps_write_flash 0 48

The function takes two parameters, in $1 and $2 at the start. The first parameter, copied into p, is the partition number, and so it needs to go 0, 1, ...

perhaps_write_flash 0 224 perhaps_write_flash 1 16 perhaps_write_flash 2 16 perhaps_write_flash 3 16 perhaps_write_flash 4 1728 perhaps_write_flash 5 48

I also think you might want to remove the `-backup' in f's definition near the start because your script said they were called e3-nand.0, etc.

What you've given here replaces the six blocks of if...then...fi lines in your original script, leaving the bit before and after.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

OK try it in about hour busy at the moment. My other E3 is on it way… 😊

I have added the new script..

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎13‎:‎01 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

Changed…

Looks good enough to try to me, based on your original.

echo "Type Reboot or unplug E3 to see if the Amstrad E3 Splash Screen"

It's `reboot' that needs typing as command names on Linux are case sensitive.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

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What code would I add to the erase code to add the 5 backup images to nandwrite to nand..?

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎16‎:‎08 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Code works but didn’t realise the code don’t have nandwrite to write the 5 backup files to the nand… lol

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎13‎:‎09 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

OK try it in about hour busy at the moment. My other E3 is on it way… 😊

I have added the new script..

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎13‎:‎01 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

Changed…

Looks good enough to try to me, based on your original.

echo "Type Reboot or unplug E3 to see if the Amstrad E3 Splash Screen"

It's `reboot' that needs typing as command names on Linux are case sensitive.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

Hi Nick,

Starting restore.. This might take a while... found /media/sda1/e3-nand.0 erasing 224 on /dev/mtd0 Erase Total 224 Units Performing Flash Erase of length 16384 at offset 0x37c000 done offset 0x1f8000 writing flash Input file is not page aligned

That's nandwrite detecting the file's length means it doesn't contain a whole number of what it expects.

Data did not fit into device, due to bad blocks

That's just a secondary error caused by the first that can be ignored; a bug in nandwrite.

https://github.com/vamanea/mtd-utils/blob/master/nandwrite.c#L46 says -o means image contains OOB data, but we've stripped it out so the nandwrite -on $dev $f you have needs to be nandwrite -n $dev $f

That's assuming it's okay to write the data without the OOB part; I don't know about mtd but that's the implication I picked up from earlier in this thread.

Hi Nick,

I copied it twice not

What's the output of copying it once?

Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*

What if you try reading out the flash. Do you get what you put in? `cmp foo bar' compares all the bytes in those two files and complains if any differ.

Otherwise, I think you'll have to wait for someone that knows mtd to come along and offer suggestions.

I was just wondering what font the emailer uses, all 3 models use the same font..?

Span..

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All it does is show the PBL line on terminal and a black screen on the E3 and nothing else, its like it can’t get past it.

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From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎18‎:‎30 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

I copied it twice not

What's the output of copying it once?

Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*

What if you try reading out the flash. Do you get what you put in? `cmp foo bar' compares all the bytes in those two files and complains if any differ.

Otherwise, I think you'll have to wait for someone that knows mtd to come along and offer suggestions.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

What if you try reading out the flash. Do you get what you put in? `cmp foo bar' compares all the bytes in those two files and complains if any differ.

Just noticed what you wrote, how do I do this,flash the Nand then after its done it type >`cmp foo bar' ..?

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎25‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎24 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

As its flashing to the Nand it is reporting bad blocks but still flashing the image, its missing some of them so not flashing them all over to the Nand. I think mtd 5 it said “ image don’t fit because of bad blocks” I just don’t have a clue.

Spanner..

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From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎25‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎17 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

All it does is show the PBL line on terminal and a black screen on the E3 and nothing else, its like it can’t get past it.

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎18‎:‎30 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

I copied it twice not

What's the output of copying it once?

Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*

What if you try reading out the flash. Do you get what you put in? `cmp foo bar' compares all the bytes in those two files and complains if any differ.

Otherwise, I think you'll have to wait for someone that knows mtd to come along and offer suggestions.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

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Ok thanks,I got my new E3 today and the seller told me it was working and able to make a call on it before I bought it and its unregistered so deactivated…dam it.. ☹ ,he said to me he don’t understand how it was reset when it was working…??? Well it can do it by itself without you pressing Delete,Stop and Handsfree at boot up….lol Its Main Software is V4 so the dial for email trick don’t work. so no point in copying the firmware but I am glad I have the clock back, I do like the look of the firmware on the E3.. 😊 Well its my clock now. Its a shame, I never buy another E3 again unless I see it working(picture of its screen) and it activated or have CC on it, but trying to get one that has CC on it is like looking for a needle in a haystack..lol

Has anyone have a idea of copying the firmware on the E1 or E2, I have a E1 that activated too now.. 😊I don’t know how the E1/E2 E-mailers OS work maybe someone can explain, well it not Linux like E3 so what does it use..?

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎25‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎13‎:‎25 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

As its flashing to the Nand it is reporting bad blocks but still flashing the image, its missing some of them so not flashing them all over to the Nand.

You could try adding the -m option to nandwrite to mark the bad blocks. nandwrite -mn $dev $f But it's risky. I don't know if it's the correct thing to do, and if it needlessly marks blocks as bad for some reason, I don't know how to cancel that, though I assume it's possible.

In short, you're outside the scope of what I know.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

So, does that mean you have two now?

Yes I have 2 E3 now.. lol

What do you mean by "reset"?

I mean if you hold Down Delete, Stop and Handfree when you boot up the E3 it puts in back to factory defaults where you have to register it and says” Press the [Email] button to get connected”

Please remind me what this "trick" is?

With the Main Software V2 if its deactivated you could lift hand set and press and hold email down until it says aborting email please wait.. and it would activate the phone, it don’t work on V4.

I disagree - a comparison (especially of the boot loader, not necessarily the

main software) could be instructive.

I can copy the firmware if you want it and share it…?

You mean copying the firmware for interest's sake, or with the idea of copying

from the E1/E2 to the E3? No copying the firmware from the E1/E2 to copy it back to a E1/E2 that's deactivated to activate them.

Why do you always write this at the end of your emails?

Spanner is my name, My real name is Nick, I have not been called Nick for about 15 years. Last person to call me Nick was my mum, she died 15 years ago in 2004. I go by Spanner or Span now… 😊

Its a nickname I got at school, my partner started calling me it because I am good at working things out or fixing things then I started to use it as a username online.

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Antony Stonemailto:Antony.Stone@e3.open.source.it Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎26‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎21‎:‎31 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

On Friday 26 April 2019 at 22:01:29, Nick Griffin wrote:

Ok thanks,I got my new E3 today

So, does that mean you have two now?

and the seller told me it was working and able to make a call on it before I bought it and its unregistered so deactivated…

Sounds good so far...

dam it.. ☹ ,he said to me he don’t understand how it was reset when it was working…???

What do you mean by "reset"?

Its Main Software is V4 so the dial for email trick don’t work.

Please remind me what this "trick" is?

so no point in copying the firmware

I disagree - a comparison (especially of the boot loader, not necessarily the main software) could be instructive.

but I am glad I have the clock back,

Be thankful for small mercies :))

Has anyone have a idea of copying the firmware on the E1 or E2,

You mean copying the firmware for interest's sake, or with the idea of copying from the E1/E2 to the E3?

I really doubt that E1/E2 firmware would work on an E3. Different CPUs, for a start.

I have a E1 that activated too now.. 😊I don’t know how the E1/E2 E-mailers OS work maybe someone can explain, well it not Linux like E3 so what does it use..?

Remember that there was a day when people wrote firmware for devices from scratch, without using an "operating system". It's only since the days when embedded devices like wireless routers, telephones, televisions etc have had enough CPU and RAM to run Linux that this has been a simpler starting point.

Spanner..

Why do you always write this at the end of your emails?

Regards,

Antony.

-- "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times - stop exaggerating!"

Please reply to the list; please *don't* CC me.

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As said before, drawing a picture on the screen with the ams-delta Linux distribution is as simple as copying a file from the USB stick to /dev/fb0...

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt cat /mnt/image.dat > /dev/fb0

You'll need to get the image into the right format, and the E3 screen format is kinda weird, so you'll need to experiment with tools to figure out how to do this (and it may need some custom programming), but it shouldn't be difficult. IIRC it's 12-bit RGB. Once that's done writing a little shell script which displays an image carousel which runs on the E3 is trivial.

On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 at 22:14, Nick Griffin span1922@live.com wrote:

So you can show pictures and video on the screen, there is info here about it here on how to do it on a laptop.. http://www.amusings.com/linux-powered-digital-picture-frame/ There is nothing on how to do it on a E3, well there wouldn’t be, if anyone can give me some points on how to do this,but I don’t want to take the E3 a part just add the software to make it act like a Digital Picture Frame.

One way of recycling it..😠

Oh.. I am at the moment making one of the adverts that were on the E3,I am rebuilding the AOL advert, its the one in red and white and say AOL.. One Month Free, because I found it but its too small. I going to make more..😊 It funny it say on the advert in small writing that a PC in required… lol

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

*From:* Nick Griffin span1922@live.com *Sent:* ‎Friday‎, ‎26‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎23 *To:* Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software e3-hacking@earth.li

...

So, does that mean you have two now?

Yes I have 2 E3 now.. lol

...

What do you mean by "reset"?

I mean if you hold Down Delete, Stop and Handfree when you boot up the E3 it puts in back to factory defaults where you have to register it and says” Press the [Email] button to get connected”

...

Please remind me what this "trick" is?

With the Main Software V2 if its deactivated you could lift hand set and press and hold email down until it says aborting email please wait.. and it would activate the phone, it don’t work on V4.

...

I disagree - a comparison (especially of the boot loader, not necessarily

the main software) could be instructive.

I can copy the firmware if you want it and share it…?

...

You mean copying the firmware for interest's sake, or with the idea of

copying from the E1/E2 to the E3? No copying the firmware from the E1/E2 to copy it back to a E1/E2 that's deactivated to activate them.

...

Why do you always write this at the end of your emails?

Spanner is my name, My real name is Nick, I have not been called Nick for about 15 years. Last person to call me Nick was my mum, she died 15 years ago in 2004. I go by Spanner or Span now… 😊

Its a nickname I got at school, my partner started calling me it because I am good at working things out or fixing things then I started to use it as a username online.

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

*From:* Antony Stone Antony.Stone@e3.open.source.it *Sent:* ‎Friday‎, ‎26‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎21‎:‎31 *To:* Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software e3-hacking@earth.li

On Friday 26 April 2019 at 22:01:29, Nick Griffin wrote:

...

Ok thanks,I got my new E3 today

So, does that mean you have two now?

...

and the seller told me it was working and able to make a call on it

before I

...

bought it and its unregistered so deactivated…

Sounds good so far...

...

dam it.. ☹ ,he said to me he don’t understand how it was reset when it

was

...

working…???

What do you mean by "reset"?

...

Its Main Software is V4 so the dial for email trick don’t work.

Please remind me what this "trick" is?

...

so no point in copying the firmware

I disagree - a comparison (especially of the boot loader, not necessarily the main software) could be instructive.

...

but I am glad I have the clock back,

Be thankful for small mercies :))

...

Has anyone have a idea of copying the firmware on the E1 or E2,

You mean copying the firmware for interest's sake, or with the idea of copying from the E1/E2 to the E3?

I really doubt that E1/E2 firmware would work on an E3. Different CPUs, for a start.

...

I have a E1 that activated too now.. 😊I don’t know how the E1/E2

E-mailers

...

OS work maybe someone can explain, well it not Linux like E3 so what

does it

...

use..?

Remember that there was a day when people wrote firmware for devices from scratch, without using an "operating system". It's only since the days when embedded devices like wireless routers, telephones, televisions etc have had enough CPU and RAM to run Linux that this has been a simpler starting point.

...

Spanner..

Why do you always write this at the end of your emails?

Regards,

Antony.

-- "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times - stop exaggerating!"

                                               Please reply to the

list; please *don't* CC me.

---

e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li

https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth.... _______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://www.earth.li/mailman/listinfo/e3-hacking

Does anyone know what mtd partition this line is from…

System module loader - LDR V1.5 Build:0008 Assert

Its the first line that comes up in the boot log after Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 … , after I flash the mtdx it only comes up with Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 … than stops at 2MB* and no splash screen, just a black screen..?

Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*

System module loader - LDR V1.5 Build:0008 Assert Mod scan 10010100 to 10230100 MEM - 10024000 (flash 00404000) PARMS - 10024400 (flash 00404400) LDR - 10024800 (flash 00404800) LINUX - 10044000 (flash 00424000) num modules: 4

I am trying to work out what mtd it looks at first, mtd0 …?

It looks like to me that its flashing it back to the NAND wrong and that why its not booting, this is why I need someone to test it who knows what they are doing and knows about flashing to mtd partitions ..?

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎27‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎21‎:‎53 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

I need someone on here who knows what there are doing flashing the Amstrad firmware back on the E3.

Has anyone still got there E3 on here but only if you have flashed E3 Linux on it already then you can test trying flashing Amstrad E3 Original Firmware back and see it you can get it working, More people doing it would be better because one of us might get it working.

And I might of missed something you might find.. 😊

Any one willing to do this..?

Mine don’t go anywhere it don’t even get to this line …

System module loader - LDR V1.5 Build:0008 Assert

What am I missing…??

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎26‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎22‎:‎23 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

So, does that mean you have two now?

Yes I have 2 E3 now.. lol

What do you mean by "reset"?

I mean if you hold Down Delete, Stop and Handfree when you boot up the E3 it puts in back to factory defaults where you have to register it and says” Press the [Email] button to get connected”

Please remind me what this "trick" is?

With the Main Software V2 if its deactivated you could lift hand set and press and hold email down until it says aborting email please wait.. and it would activate the phone, it don’t work on V4.

I disagree - a comparison (especially of the boot loader, not necessarily the

main software) could be instructive.

I can copy the firmware if you want it and share it…?

You mean copying the firmware for interest's sake, or with the idea of copying

from the E1/E2 to the E3? No copying the firmware from the E1/E2 to copy it back to a E1/E2 that's deactivated to activate them.

Why do you always write this at the end of your emails?

Spanner is my name, My real name is Nick, I have not been called Nick for about 15 years. Last person to call me Nick was my mum, she died 15 years ago in 2004. I go by Spanner or Span now… 😊

Its a nickname I got at school, my partner started calling me it because I am good at working things out or fixing things then I started to use it as a username online.

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Antony Stonemailto:Antony.Stone@e3.open.source.it Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎26‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎21‎:‎31 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

On Friday 26 April 2019 at 22:01:29, Nick Griffin wrote:

Ok thanks,I got my new E3 today

So, does that mean you have two now?

and the seller told me it was working and able to make a call on it before I bought it and its unregistered so deactivated…

Sounds good so far...

dam it.. ☹ ,he said to me he don’t understand how it was reset when it was working…???

What do you mean by "reset"?

Its Main Software is V4 so the dial for email trick don’t work.

Please remind me what this "trick" is?

so no point in copying the firmware

I disagree - a comparison (especially of the boot loader, not necessarily the main software) could be instructive.

but I am glad I have the clock back,

Be thankful for small mercies :))

Has anyone have a idea of copying the firmware on the E1 or E2,

You mean copying the firmware for interest's sake, or with the idea of copying from the E1/E2 to the E3?

I really doubt that E1/E2 firmware would work on an E3. Different CPUs, for a start.

I have a E1 that activated too now.. 😊I don’t know how the E1/E2 E-mailers OS work maybe someone can explain, well it not Linux like E3 so what does it use..?

Remember that there was a day when people wrote firmware for devices from scratch, without using an "operating system". It's only since the days when embedded devices like wireless routers, telephones, televisions etc have had enough CPU and RAM to run Linux that this has been a simpler starting point.

Spanner..

Why do you always write this at the end of your emails?

Regards,

Antony.

-- "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times - stop exaggerating!"

Please reply to the list; please *don't* CC me.

_______________________________________________ e3-hacking mailing list e3-hacking@earth.li https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.earth....

Ok so PBL boots from mtd3 partition first then so maybe its not flashing mtd3 properly…??

If you can see the data from the images I made then the data is there so what the hell it going on, why will it not boot up, just a black screen..??

Just found a site on info about NAND .. might be interesting reading.. https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiOubGz2vLhAhWDyKQKHVTuA0MQFjAAegQIAxAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.linux-mtd.infradead.org%2Fdoc%2Fnand.html&usg=AOvVaw3BVVUuToL0Qz0nX11699kb NAND data - Memory Technology Device (MTD) Subsystem for Linux

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎28‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎13‎:‎44 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

Does anyone know what mtd partition this line is from… System module loader - LDR V1.5 Build:0008 Assert

$ LC_ALL=C grep -boa 'LDR V1.5 Build:0008 Assert' e3-nand-backup.? e3-nand-backup.3:18472:LDR V1.5 Build:0008 Assert $

18472 is the zero-based byte offset.

That's the same file with the Q;Q; for LDR.

$ qq() { > LC_ALL=C perl -0777ne 'print $& while /Q;Q;.{0,32}/gs' "$@" | > hexdump -ve '36/1 "%_p" "\n"'; > } $ $ for f in e3-nand-backup.?; do > qq $f | grep LDR | sed "s/^/$f /" > done e3-nand-backup.3 Q;Q;....Hf..........LDR............. $

-- Cheers, Ralph.

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So you would put in the number 224 in the flash_erase line at the end..

flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 224

I just hope it works if it dose then we have just fixed the E3,all you need is a copy of the firware that's activated and when it deactives just reflash it again to activate it..😊

Spanner..

http://amstrad-e3-hacking.freeforums.net

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎24‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎10‎:‎46 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

...

That should be possible as you have the files, now without their 16 bytes per 512 bytes overhead. You need to work out how many blocks to erase based on the size of each file you're trying to put back. IIRC I pointed out a block is the unit of erasure and it's 16 KiB.

So e3-nand.0 is 3584 KB so how many blocks go into it…? so how many times dose 16KB going in to 3584KB…?? I don’t know..?? I can’t divide. Iam a bit ok on Add not brilliant at Times but can’t do Divide.

Having stripped the excess OOB data, I have these sizes for each file in bytes.

3670016 e3-nand-backup.0 262144 e3-nand-backup.1 262144 e3-nand-backup.2 262144 e3-nand-backup.3 28311552 e3-nand-backup.4 786432 e3-nand-backup.5

You're right, 3,670,016 B is 3,584 KiB because 3,670,016 / 1,024 = 3,584 so 1,024 goes into 3,670,016 exactly 3,584 times.

But the size of the erase block is 16 KiB which is 16 * 1,024 = 16,384 so we want to know how many times 16,384 goes into 3,670,016. 3,670,016 / 16,384 = 224 224 is what you worked out in your other email.

Taking those six sizes above and repeating the same sum gives

3,670,016 / 16,384 = 224 262,144 / 16,384 = 16 262,144 / 16,384 = 16 262,144 / 16,384 = 16 28,311,552 / 16,384 = 1,728 786,432 / 16,384 = 48

Now I haven't been carefully following along how to extract e3-nand-backup.* in the first place, and how to write them back. I'm aware there's a script involved and a command where one of the parameters is the number of 16 KiB blocks to erase. Hopefully, plugging in those numbers above for each of the matching areas will work, but it's your responsibility whether to go ahead as you're the one actually doing all this; I've just been sitting at a keyboard. :-)

-- Cheers, Ralph.

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Hi Jonathan,

So, the MTD partitions do not directly map to a kernel or a Linux filesystem. The "Q;Q;" blocks are an Amstrad specific way of putting data into those partitions, with a type + description associated with each one. For example the kernel lives in a Q;Q; block in mtd3 called "LINUX". mtd3 also has Q;Q; blocks for LDR (the second stage boot loader), and PARMS (the kernel boot parameters).

Agreed. I guessed a 32-byte struct based on various `Q;Q;'s seen.

$ qq() { > LC_ALL=C perl -0777ne 'print $& while /Q;Q;.{0,32}/g' "$@" | > hexdump -ve '36/1 "%_p" "\n"'; > } $ $ qq e3-nand-backup.3 Q;Q;...@............MEM............. Q;Q;................PARMS........... Q;Q;....Hf..........LDR............. Q;Q;.....x..........LINUX........... $

The CRAMFS filesystem is in mtd4; Q;Q; block name "LNXFSYS". There are 2 of them (I imagine to allow for an active + fallback).

$ qq e3-nand-backup.4 | grep LNXFSYS Q;Q;................LNXFSYS......... Q;Q;...6............LNXFSYS......... $

There are various other bits of content in mtd4 too - you can see them by doing:

hexdump -C e3-nand-backup.4 | grep -A 1 "Q;Q;"

That's where my 32-byte-long guess comes unstuck. A Q;Q; appears within the structs around LIBC's.

$ qq e3-nand-backup.4 | fgrep -3 .LIBC Q;Q;..^.. ..........WTL_MAILCON..... Q;Q;..... ..........WTL_RES......... Q;Q;..M. ........Q;Q;..... ........ Q;Q;..... ..........LIBC............ Q;Q;..... ........Q;Q;...Q. ........ ..WTL_WAV.........Q;Q;..... ........ ..WTL_CHUNK.......Q;Q;..$.. ........ $

And so it's out of step for a while. Perhaps there's Q;Q;-formatted data inside a Q;Q; block, or the last struct in the initial `list' is shorter and its struct's content indicate that.

$ qq e3-nand-backup.4 | grep -1 ^Q | grep -3 ^- Q;Q;..... ..........LIBC............ Q;Q;..... ........Q;Q;...Q. ........ ..WTL_WAV.........Q;Q;..... ........ -- ..M_USERPREF......Q;Q;.....V........ Q;Q;.....1..........M_WTL_WTAI...... Q;Q;.....A..........M_VPARSE........ $

I expect a bit of peering at the words in each struct would spot a length or similar of each `file's data to save searching through for the next Q;Q;.

On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 03:24:41PM +0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Jonathan,

...

So, the MTD partitions do not directly map to a kernel or a Linux filesystem. The "Q;Q;" blocks are an Amstrad specific way of putting data into those partitions, with a type + description associated with each one. For example the kernel lives in a Q;Q; block in mtd3 called "LINUX". mtd3 also has Q;Q; blocks for LDR (the second stage boot loader), and PARMS (the kernel boot parameters).

Agreed. I guessed a 32-byte struct based on various `Q;Q;'s seen.

It's a 124 byte struct from my notes;

0: 0x3B513B51 # Q;Q; 4: 6: 2 byte checksum 8: Length if uncompressed? C: 10: 14: # Block name, 16 chars 24: # Block description, 48 chars 64: Entry vector? 68: 0xB513B513 # Note, inverted Q;Q 6c: Load address? 70: Compression flag, 0 == plain, 2 == compressed 74: Compressed length 78: 7C: END

Compression is LZRW1 without the leading 4 flag bytes.

J.

I have made a video so you can see it for yourself, its just not doing anything,in pbltool it says Prodding and not going no further ,in Putty you only see Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE

PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*

and that's it stops and nothing happens. No more text comes up …dead... ☹ Its like it can’t talk thought serial no more. If I can’t fix this I have to buy another one and the cheapest one on eBay is £30..wow. Here is the video on you tube.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl8-QUlJvpU Spanner..

From: Nick Griffinmailto:span1922@live.com Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎14‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎12‎:‎00 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

You'd need to look into what pbltool is seeking and not finding. But as long as you're still getting PBL printing out its banner, it's there and willing to alter the main flash memory for you.

I don’t know what I need to do next and how to find out what pbltool is looking for..? I don’t know anything about pbltool,I only run it in the V2 release of E3 Linux to install it. Can you please help. Thanks.

Spanner..

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Sunday‎, ‎14‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎09‎:‎50 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

On Putty it just comes up with this and that's it.. “Amstrad Delta - PBL V4.9 Build:1311 Assert Debug ICE PBL 32MB NAND 0MB.-->MEMv01.00.002,CopyLim=00220000h,CodeEnd=01400000h-->PBL......1MB.......2MB*” Dam have to buy another one now.

I agree with David; PBL survives, by design, and you can try again.

You later write:

Its lights flash when you plug it in and thats it pbltool says probbing and nothing else...?

You'd need to look into what pbltool is seeking and not finding. But as long as you're still getting PBL printing out its banner, it's there and willing to alter the main flash memory for you.

-- Cheers, Ralph.

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Hi Nick,

Had to stop pbltool from Prodding and had to tell the E3 I have already handshaked..😊and BING it worked, now have Linux back on the E3..feeewwww..lol

Well done.

Here is the command just incase it happens to anyone else…

Thanks; that will help future searchers of the mailing-list archive.

Not a chance, sorry! Just running X is a stretch. The E3 only has 32MB of RAM; you're going to struggle to get *anything* graphical in that. I believe that back in the day I managed to get something working with Kdrive, but most likely you'll need something framebuffer or console based.

On Sun, 14 Apr 2019 at 22:06, Nick Griffin span1922@live.com wrote:

I was thinking of the GNOME Desktop, It would need a light, or is it not possible because the E3 is not powerful enough..?

Has anyone looked into this..?

Spanner..

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I used to run KDE 1.x and GNOME 1.x and even Mozilla on a PC with 32MB of RAM. But that was ~15 years ago. I think modern Mozilla would refuse to run with that. You could probably try to run some lightweight WMs like IceWM or something.

You could try animate from ImageMagick.

On Sun, 14 Apr 2019 at 22:19, Ed Robbins edd.robbins@googlemail.com wrote:

gmenu2x is probably your best bet. It's a GUI that runs on the framebuffer using SDL, generally used to launch SDL applications. It's used on the zipit z2, gp2x etc (similar specs) mostly for launching emulators, music players etc.

Note: It's nothing like a proper desktop environment though.

On Sun, 14 Apr 2019 at 22:00, Piotr Michniewski pmichniewski@gmail.com wrote:

...

You could try animate from ImageMagick.

-- Piotr Michniewski

niedz., 14 kwi 2019 o 22:48 Nick Griffin span1922@live.com napisał(a):

...

I guest it would be imposable, Has anyone got any ideas on how to show a gif on the E3 screen..?

Spanner..

*From:* Piotr Michniewski pmichniewski@gmail.com *Sent:* ‎Sunday‎, ‎14‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎21‎:‎39 *To:* Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software e3-hacking@earth.li

I used to run KDE 1.x and GNOME 1.x and even Mozilla on a PC with 32MB of RAM. But that was ~15 years ago. I think modern Mozilla would refuse to run with that. You could probably try to run some lightweight WMs like IceWM or something.

-- Piotr Michniewski

niedz., 14 kwi 2019 o 22:24 Antony Stone Antony.Stone@e3.open.source.it napisał(a):

...

On Sunday 14 April 2019 at 22:05:45, Nick Griffin wrote:

...

I was thinking of the GNOME Desktop, It would need a light, or is it

not

...

possible because the E3 is not powerful enough..?

I don't know quite what sort of light you're thinking of using, but there is no way the E3 has anything like enough RAM to run a "standard" Linux graphical desktop environment.

The CPU may be slow, but without enough RAM you'll get nowhere.

Antony.

-- In Heaven, the beer is Belgian, the chefs are Italian, the supermarkets are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are French, the entertainment is American, and everything is organised by the Swiss.

In Hell, the beer is American, the chefs are British, the supermarkets are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the entertainment is Belgian, and everything is organised by the Italians.

                                               Please reply to the

list; please *don't* CC me.

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Thanks, do I download the latest version, its a shame this can’t run Android, Android uses Linux to run, well Android is Linux in a way, it come from it If Linux didn’t exist Android wouldn't.

Spanner..

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎10‎:‎04 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

Has anyone got any ideas on how to show a gif on the E3 screen..?

If you have a working framebuffer then fbvis is a image viewer by Ali Gholami Rudi who no longer uses X11. See his `FRAMEBUFFER' section. https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flitcave.rud...

-- Cheers, Ralph.

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I believe it needs a hacked version of the original firmware really and everything would work and if you could hack the internet and email apps in the Main Software so it would work with a network adapter to download email and that.

But that will never happen because there is no interest in the device no more and its too old now. I would like a hacked version of it. You could put a Raspberry PI in it and would need a 6 inch screen. I would like to use it as intended, as a phone and that.

Spanner..

From: David Givenmailto:dg@cowlark.com Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎11‎:‎57 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Android's also way too big! Even the earliest version (I have one on my desk) needed 192MB. Current versions get a bit uncomfortable in 2048MB..

Linux is really too big for the E3; the OS, even the 10-year-old version the E3 used, doesn't scale down well that far. Now, if you wanted to port something like Minix to it...

On Mon, 15 Apr 2019 at 12:40, Nick Griffin <span1922@live.commailto:span1922@live.com> wrote: Thanks, do I download the latest version, its a shame this can’t run Android, Android uses Linux to run, well Android is Linux in a way, it come from it If Linux didn’t exist Android wouldn't.

Spanner..

From: Ralph Corderoymailto:ralph@inputplus.co.uk Sent: ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎10‎:‎04 To: Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/softwaremailto:e3-hacking@earth.li

Hi Nick,

Has anyone got any ideas on how to show a gif on the E3 screen..?

If you have a working framebuffer then fbvis is a image viewer by Ali Gholami Rudi who no longer uses X11. See his `FRAMEBUFFER' section. https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flitcave.rud...https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http://litcave.rudi.ir/&data=02%7c01%7c%7c55fc20814aba4056b1a708d6c191259e%7c84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7c1%7c0%7c636909226493582912&sdata=Mj5QB1qQspKqvPKiCIAIuuxQerS1U3HvjW4NLasb3RA%3D&reserved=0

-- Cheers, Ralph.

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Hi Nick,

root@amsdeltamailto:root@amsdelta:~# cat /proc/mtd dev: size erasesize name mtd0: 00380000 00004000 "Kernel" mtd1: 00040000 00004000 "u-boot" mtd2: 00040000 00004000 "u-boot params" mtd3: 00040000 00004000 "Amstrad LDR" mtd4: 01b00000 00004000 "File system" mtd5: 000c0000 00004000 "PBL reserved" Just realised there are all the same Block size, look at the erasesize.

Yes, all 16 KiB.

“flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 16” whats the 16 for at the end of the line, is it what block size to erase, ( can’t work out what number to put there)could I just erase the whole partition(mtd0) with “flash_erase /dev/mtd0 0 0”..? I don’t want to made a mistake..??

See https://github.com/vamanea/mtd-utils/blob/master/flash_erase.c#L60

Can you Loading a Animated gif into E3 Linux and display on the E3 screen say from the USB Stick so its like a sceen saver..?

I have animated gifs of the E3s adverts..😊 I wanted to see if I can get them to play on the screen and maybe then by pressing the advent button on the screen it stops them and put it back to Linux command line. It be good for displaying them and how it looked with the adverts on E3 screen in 2004/5.

Well you could then use it as a picture viewer then.

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