Hi Guys,
Could someone let me know if there are any docs describing how I can use the boot-loader to upload my own kernel into RAM and ideally also re-flash it?
Thanks,
Mark
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On Thursday 19 January 2006 19:01, Mark Underwood wrote: [...]
Could someone let me know if there are any docs describing how I can use the boot-loader to upload my own kernel into RAM and ideally also re-flash it?
Yes, this has been fairly well reverse engineered. I wrote a tool called pblq that would do this sort of thing; see http://www.cowlark.com/amstrad.html. Someone else on the list has a very similar tool called pbltool which is apparently more complete --- sorry, I've forgotten who and where!
Is there a decent set of resources for this kind of software, yet? The one page I know about (Ralph's page on inputplus) has lots of information on the hardware, but not much about software.
Hi,
David Given wrote:
Someone else on the list has a very similar tool called pbltool which is apparently more complete --- sorry, I've forgotten who and where!
It was written by Jonathan McDowell, I can't remember where I found it! I've put a link to my local copy here:
http://www.cambridgewargames.org.uk/members/andy/emailer/
Hope that helps,
Andy M
On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 08:05:44AM +0000, Andy wrote:
David Given wrote:
Someone else on the list has a very similar tool called pbltool which is apparently more complete --- sorry, I've forgotten who and where!
It was written by Jonathan McDowell, I can't remember where I found it! I've put a link to my local copy here:
http://www.earth.li/~noodles/files/pbltool.c
is where it came from originally. I haven't looked at it in ages, but I've finally got my E3 out of the drawer again and hooked it up, so will try and do some cleanups and another release. ISTR someone had a few patches for it; I'm happy to receive comments/patches if you have them.
I don't think it does anything that pblq doesn't, except for the fact I couldn't get pblq to work on the E3 and as I started writing test code to figure out why it just became easier to extend it.
J.
--- David Given dg@cowlark.com wrote:
On Thursday 19 January 2006 19:01, Mark Underwood wrote: [...]
Could someone let me know if there are any docs describing how I can use the boot-loader to upload my own kernel into RAM and ideally also re-flash it?
Yes, this has been fairly well reverse engineered. I wrote a tool called pblq that would do this sort of thing; see http://www.cowlark.com/amstrad.html. Someone else on the list has a very similar tool called pbltool which is apparently more complete --- sorry, I've forgotten who and where!
Is there a decent set of resources for this kind of software, yet? The one page I know about (Ralph's page on inputplus) has lots of information on the hardware, but not much about software.
Right, I now have my E3 talking to my PC :-) (hence the new boot logs) and have tried to run both pbltool and pblq.
When I run pbltool it doesn't seem to pickup the right character at the beginning and just prints lots of "Flushing: 0x**" messages while the E3 boots up and then "Prodding..."
With pblq it seems to get further. If I run "pblq -p /dev/ttyS0 -v ping" I get the following response:
(voice and e-mail LEDS flashing) Waiting for device to reset... Handshaking... Switching to 115200 baud... (voice and e-mail LEDS stop flashing) (10 sec pause) (voice and e-mail LEDS start flashing again) pblq: Protocol error: incorrect packet prefix (got C9, should be 02) (Continues to boot)
If I set the fast baud rate to 9600 then it doesn't print the "Switching to 115200 baud..." message. If my understanding is correct then this means the program has stopped the E3 from going into it's normal boot mode and the PBL software should now be in a state to receive commands, but it seems that any command that is sent to it is ignored (well at least PACKET_SETBAUD and PACKET_GETVERSION). It couldn't be that my slow P120 Laptop is being outrun by a E3 could it (if the response got sent from the E3 before the UART was read from would the buffer be flushed when the read() call was made? I don't think this is the case)?!
Any idea's, please :-)
Mark
-- +- David Given --McQ-+ | dg@cowlark.com | C:\DOS, C:\DOS\RUN, RUN\DOS\RUN | (dg@tao-group.com) | +- www.cowlark.com --+
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Mark Underwood wrote:
--- David Given dg@cowlark.com wrote:
On Thursday 19 January 2006 19:01, Mark Underwood wrote: [...]
Could someone let me know if there are any docs describing how I can use the boot-loader to upload my own kernel into RAM and ideally also re-flash it?
Yes, this has been fairly well reverse engineered. I wrote a tool called pblq that would do this sort of thing; see http://www.cowlark.com/amstrad.html. Someone else on the list has a very similar tool called pbltool which is apparently more complete --- sorry, I've forgotten who and where!
Is there a decent set of resources for this kind of software, yet? The one page I know about (Ralph's page on inputplus) has lots of information on the hardware, but not much about software.
Right, I now have my E3 talking to my PC :-) (hence the new boot logs) and have tried to run both pbltool and pblq.
When I run pbltool it doesn't seem to pickup the right character at the beginning and just prints lots of "Flushing: 0x**" messages while the E3 boots up and then "Prodding..."
With pblq it seems to get further. If I run "pblq -p /dev/ttyS0 -v ping" I get the following response:
(voice and e-mail LEDS flashing) Waiting for device to reset... Handshaking... Switching to 115200 baud... (voice and e-mail LEDS stop flashing) (10 sec pause) (voice and e-mail LEDS start flashing again) pblq: Protocol error: incorrect packet prefix (got C9, should be 02) (Continues to boot)
If I set the fast baud rate to 9600 then it doesn't print the "Switching to 115200 baud..." message. If my understanding is correct then this means the program has stopped the E3 from going into it's normal boot mode and the PBL software should now be in a state to receive commands, but it seems that any command that is sent to it is ignored (well at least PACKET_SETBAUD and PACKET_GETVERSION). It couldn't be that my slow P120 Laptop is being outrun by a E3 could it (if the response got sent from the E3 before the UART was read from would the buffer be flushed when the read() call was made? I don't think this is the case)?!
Any idea's, please :-)
Mark
-- +- David Given --McQ-+ | dg@cowlark.com | C:\DOS, C:\DOS\RUN, RUN\DOS\RUN | (dg@tao-group.com) | +- www.cowlark.com --+
Hi,
I find that the E3 boots a bit too quick for me to run pbltool and connect the power.
What I do is run pbltool and then connect the power. This gives an error message unexpected packet 0x02 or something like that, and then I get what you are getting 0x?? (which is the text of the booting kernel image). At the point pbltool goes into prodding/probing mode I power cycle the phone and it then normally goes into PBL mode. Give the phone enough time to power down before you reconnect the power though.
I put it down to noise on the serial line, maybe its because I'm not using the line converter, who knows.
You'll know when its in PBL mode, the phone appears completely dead (the LEDS are just visible as they flash about every five seconds).
Mark.
On Tuesday 24 January 2006 22:01, Mark Underwood wrote: [...]
If I set the fast baud rate to 9600 then it doesn't print the "Switching to 115200 baud..." message. If my understanding is correct then this means the program has stopped the E3 from going into it's normal boot mode and the PBL software should now be in a state to receive commands, but it seems that any command that is sent to it is ignored (well at least PACKET_SETBAUD and PACKET_GETVERSION). It couldn't be that my slow P120 Laptop is being outrun by a E3 could it (if the response got sent from the E3 before the UART was read from would the buffer be flushed when the read() call was made? I don't think this is the case)?!
Doubtful --- a P120 should have no trouble whatsoever from coping with 115200 baud.
I'm afraid I only tested pblq on an E2 (but I am planning on getting an E3 since they're so cheap). I had gathered that the E3 had a different default slow baud rate from the fast one. You might try tinkering with the slow rate settings --- but I would have expected the handshaking to fail if that were the case.
BTW, if you use a slow rate of 115200, start the terminal and then boot the E3, you should get the Linux startup messages.
-
Andy -
David Given -
Jonathan McDowell -
mark -
Mark Underwood