I was at an Auction in Ipswich today and I spotted two boxed Netgem Netbox's (A Web/eMail Set Top Box thingy) Nearly walked past them but then a Penguin on the box caught my eye (They run Linux 2.2.something)
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that they were an unsold lot from a previous auction waiting for collection by the seller. Anyway a quick chat with the Auctioneer afterwards had me getting them for reserve (£15 each)
One is missing it's Smart Card (and they seem to need this in some way) but the other is booting fine.
I have no interest in STB's but given that these have Linux, an ethernet interface, sound, TV out and a remote keyboard. I figure that as a toy to hack around with they may fill a rainy night (not that we seem to be getting those at the moment)
I am away for the weekend so can't play until sometime next week, but would the list be interested in me posting details of what I find ?
Wayne Stallwood wayne.stallwood@btinternet.com wrote:
I am away for the weekend so can't play until sometime next week, but would the list be interested in me posting details of what I find ?
Definitely. tsw still have one of these tucked away somewhere, I think, yet to be hacked and they read this list.
MJR
On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 07:49:07PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
I have no interest in STB's but given that these have Linux, an ethernet interface, sound, TV out and a remote keyboard. I figure that as a toy to hack around with they may fill a rainy night (not that we seem to be getting those at the moment)
Do you know what variant these boxes are? I found the MontaVista page which talks about partnering with Netgem.
http://www.mvista.com/partners/isv/netgem.html
Does the box have an RF or F-Connector going in (for digital TV)?
The info says it's using the IBM Vesta (STB03xxx, PowerPC 405 core with integral MPEG-2 demultiplexer and decoder). I've been working with the chips in this range for over a year now on other set-top-box products, so would be interested in what sort of box you've got.
If you're brave enough to crack it open, is the processor marked with a code?
What else is inside the box?
I am away for the weekend so can't play until sometime next week, but would the list be interested in me posting details of what I find ?
Definitely.
Yes the tsw still have one. It seemingly needs to ring france before all the config settings open up on it.
It does however have a groovy wireless keyboard :)
J
----- Original Message ----- From: "Toby Jaffey" toby@earth.li To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 12:02 AM Subject: Re: [Alug]Netbox
On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 07:49:07PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
I have no interest in STB's but given that these have Linux, an ethernet interface, sound, TV out and a remote keyboard. I figure that as a toy
to
hack around with they may fill a rainy night (not that we seem to be
getting
those at the moment)
Do you know what variant these boxes are? I found the MontaVista page which talks about partnering with Netgem.
http://www.mvista.com/partners/isv/netgem.html
Does the box have an RF or F-Connector going in (for digital TV)?
The info says it's using the IBM Vesta (STB03xxx, PowerPC 405 core with integral MPEG-2 demultiplexer and decoder). I've been working with the chips in this range for over a year now on other set-top-box products, so would be interested in what sort of box you've got.
If you're brave enough to crack it open, is the processor marked with a code?
What else is inside the box?
I am away for the weekend so can't play until sometime next week, but
would
the list be interested in me posting details of what I find ?
Definitely.
-- [ 3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't. ] Toby Jaffey. http://pkl.net/~trj/
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
On Thursday 17 April 2003 23:02, Toby Jaffey wrote:
If you're brave enough to crack it open, is the processor marked with a code?
What else is inside the box?
I cracked it open this afternoon, here's what I have found inside.
The board is marked Netbox 3.55 ISDN IT1, it is a very small board (not much larger footprint than a DVD case)
The Processor is marked STPC Consumer, STPCC0166BTC3. At first I thought this was one of the ST Micro Consumer II Products (133Mhz 486 core, with some video on chip) But now I am not so sure. In fact I can't seem to find any reference to this chip so any help here would be gratefully received. (If it was a consumer II then that would be dandy as there is a bit of Linux stuff for that, XFree drivers etc)
Next to that there is a Orca FPGA, not sure what this is doing most likely it's providing some interface logic.
Slightly below we have 8MB of M Systems Disk on chip.
Above the processor we have an ESS ES1869F Audio chip (similar to what's used in Laptops with ESS audio.
Over to the right we have a Crystal Lan KTAAFD0007 connected to a RJ45 socket. (this netbox is supposed to use a Cable box as an ethernet gateway to the internet)
Below this is a smartcard reader, the unit can come like mine with an "empty" smart card for the user to program in the internet setup. Or it can come with a "fixed" smartcard (presumably provided by a service provider) On this card as well as ethernet setup you can configure homepages and banner sources.
To the left of the processor is 4x K4E151612C-TC60 (8MB of ram ?? I haven't checked yet)
Above the processor is a rather nifty Micronas Video Pixel Decoder (presumably there for the TV Picture as a Thumbnail function.)
At the front is a Microphone and a IR Device for the Keyboard/remote (Note not an IRDA device I think this this is a pickup only)
To the left is a Unidentified properiatary 26 pin connector (wired via some protection and filters straight to the Processor) Some sort of expansion connector no doubt.
To the rear we have two Scart connectors, one output and one loopthrough, RGB pins wired on the output one. (when in operation you can have a thumbnail view of what's on the loopthrough connector)
I'll have more info when I get some cat 5 from the office and get this thing on a network.
On Mon, Apr 21, 2003 at 06:12:16PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
The Processor is marked STPC Consumer, STPCC0166BTC3. At first I thought this was one of the ST Micro Consumer II Products (133Mhz 486 core, with some video on chip) But now I am not so sure. In fact I can't seem to find any reference to this chip so any help here would be gratefully received. (If it was a consumer II then that would be dandy as there is a bit of Linux stuff for that, XFree drivers etc)
typing STPCC0166BTC3 into google gives http://us.st.com/stonline/products/support/select/videqu4.htm and this links to a page suggesting is a "consumer" chip.
Adam
On Monday 21 April 2003 17:14, Adam Bower wrote:
On Mon, Apr 21, 2003 at 06:12:16PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
The Processor is marked STPC Consumer, STPCC0166BTC3. At first I thought this was one of the ST Micro Consumer II Products (133Mhz 486 core, with some video on chip) But now I am not so sure. In fact I can't seem to find any reference to this chip so any help here would be gratefully received. (If it was a consumer II then that would be dandy as there is a bit of Linux stuff for that, XFree drivers etc)
typing STPCC0166BTC3 into google gives http://us.st.com/stonline/products/support/select/videqu4.htm and this links to a page suggesting is a "consumer" chip.
Adam
Thanks for that Adam, turns out that this is a 586 type core running at 66mhz now for some more info. I fancied a late night so popped over to the office and picked up an old Hub and some Cat5
First the good news
I've got the Netbox routing through my PC to my ADSL connection and it's all working very well. It's actually quite nice. There was a problem with google repeatedly refreshing but clicking on the update Netbox icon seemed to sort that.
A big supprise was that it plays mpeg audio streams from Shoutcast ! Pretty Impressive for a set top box I thought. (even more so considering the processor speed)
It's picking up mail from one of my accounts and as far as it's intended use goes it's working well.
Now the bad news
Hacking it is not going to be so easy.
A Nmap scan shows no ports within the ones that nmap scans, trying to telnet to the box results in a connection refused.
I noticed that /bin/sh was one of the files updated when I hit the update button but so far I have found no way of getting to it. The keyboard seems unresponsive during boot so I cannot interrupt the boot process which is a shame.
So a few questions for the group.
Does anybody know of a way to scan all 65535 ports on a host (yes I know this is going to take hours) But I am wondering if there is a useful service running on a non standard port (thinks of the Zaurus running it's ftp server on a strange port)
Any ideas about ways of killing the front end or otherwise getting to a shell prompt.
The other machine is next to useless at the moment. You have to insert a special smart card before the initial setup (I only have one between the two boxes) and inserting this card gives me a message saying that this card has already been used to initialise a Netbox and therefore cannot be used. I am thinking that the only way to save this box and make it do something is to build a IDE - disk on chip interface and carefully remove the M Systems device from the board and take a look at it's contents. Unless of course anyone out there has a better idea.
Wayne
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Adam Bower -
J -
MJ Ray -
Toby Jaffey -
Wayne Stallwood