[NTLK] Historical and technical end of year treats

Mon Dec 30 01:01:37 EST 2013

Now that’s awesome news!
Thanks!

~ Vladislav Korotnev
http://vladkorotnev.github.io/
http://vladkorotnev.me
akasaka at nopan.eu
vladkorotnev at orenoimoutogakonnanikawaiiwake.gan.ai
vladkorotnev at gmail.com
2:5020/12000.64

On 29 Dec 2013, at 23:17 , Steve White <stepwhite at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maurice Sharp's Etch-a-Sketch, the precursor to NTK has been recovered.
> 
> Download: http://www.unna.org/incoming/EaS%201.0a22.sit
> Screenshot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/5306933667/
> Backstory:
> http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Newton&story=LISP:_The_root_of_Newton_Toolkit.txt
> 
> Egger, which has been mentioned here numerous times over the years has
> finally been recovered.
> 
> Download: http://www.unna.org/incoming/Egger.sit
> Screenshot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/4693658791/
> 
> Egger states that it'll only run with an ARMistice card:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/4683061782/
> 
> Or the ARMageddon card, so long as you're running the ARMageddon
> application (app is still missing).
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/4683061364/
> 
> Or a BunWarmer.  My guess would be hooked up via one of these cards:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/4352204869/
> 
> However Maurice Sharp believes I'm wrong about this. I'm still waiting to
> hear back more (hint hint incase you're reading this Maurice :).
> 
> Provided you have one of these cards, you'll need a ROM image to load into
> Egger.  A ROM image with the version identifier "629AS.00" has been
> recovered.
> Download: http://www.unna.org/incoming/Newt%20J1Armistice%20image.zip
> 
> 
> I came across a mysterious PCMCIA card labelled "K Diags 1.4.3":
> 
> Card picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/8351773188/
> Sample screenshot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/8386068896/
> 
> This contains diagnostics software for the eMate (mentioned in the eMate
> Service Source manual).  I found it very neat as I never knew Newtons could
> boot from PCMCIA cards.  Additionally the card can copy itself to internal
> memory, or copy itself onto other PCMCIA cards.
> 
> I don't know enough about PCMCIA cards to know how to make an image of one.
> However the diagnostics software contained a "ROM Monitor" which would
> talk out the serial port:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/8386156024/
> 
> So I used this to dump all of the contents of the diagnostics software, and
> have uploaded a binary of that for others to check out.
> Download: http://www.unna.org/incoming/k-diags-1.4.3.bin.gz
> 
> 
> I finally got my hands on a Newton Notepad!
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/11312769296/
> 
> It came with a draft manual, which I've uploaded in a few parts to UNNA
> (due to the 10MB upload limit):
> http://www.unna.org/incoming/NewtonDraftManualCh1.pdf
> http://www.unna.org/incoming/NewtonDraftManualCh10-25.pdf
> http://www.unna.org/incoming/NewtonDraftManualCh2-9.pdf
> http://www.unna.org/incoming/NewtonDraftManualCh26-30.pdf
> 
> Or as a single file to scribd:
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/191956237/Newton-Draft-Manual-April-1993
> 
> 
> As the Notepad was running pre-release software, I was determined to dump
> the ROM off it.  All of the Newton ROM dumping techniques I'm aware of are
> 2.x specific, as they either require running native code or using
> Hammer/Newtsbug.  But even if there was a 1.x technique, this Notepad
> decided to put up a few hurdles.  It cannot communicate with any version of
> NCU I have.  It cannot share PCMCIA cards with other Newtons.  Nor can it
> IR beam with other Newtons.  Given the story of Newton development says
> they went from alpha to beta and back to alpha again, I'll assume this
> 1.0b1 was one of those pre-alpha betas :)
> 
> I cracked open the Notepad and sadly the ROMs are soldered to the logic
> board.  And the TSOP48 package is a bit beyond my hardware skill.  I was
> reasonably discouraged at this point. However the OMPs do have a
> diagnostics mode (described in the OMP Repair Manual).  Inside the
> diagnostics software there is a "Memory Dump and Edit" screen:
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pablo_marx/11313923653
> 
> Long story short -- I used this screen to enter a lovely 60 byte ARM
> routine to dump the ROM out the serial port.  Amazingly I was successful
> with that, so I'm happy to present a ROM image from this device:
> 
> http://www.unna.org/incoming/notepad-1.0b1.rom.gz
> 
> Feeling invincible with this success, I repeated it on an OMP running 1.3:
> 
> http://www.unna.org/incoming/omp-1.3-414059.rom.gz
> 
> (For those interested, I cannot run the two I dumped under Egger -- I
> believe this is because Egger wants a minimal amount of debugging symbols
> present: gNewtConfig, gNewtTests, gTimerVirt, SkiaHeapBase, etc.)
> 
> 
> So there now exists three 1.x images, a couple of them were never widely
> seen.  But they can't be emulated (yet), so what can people do with them
> besides stare at the precious bytes?  I clobbered together a tool named ROM
> Soup:
> 
> https://github.com/pablomarx/ROM-Soup/
> 
> 
> This tool can open the three ROMs I've mentioned here (and hopefully any
> other 1.x ROM). If there is interest, I can get 2.x images working as well.
> It requires 10.7+, but I could undo two instances of laziness to make it
> work on earlier OSes if wanted.
> 
> The tool will decode all of the NewtonScript objects located in the ROM
> Soup and recreate them inside the tool's built in NEWT/0 instance.  Once
> this finishes (lightning quick!) you're able to explore all of these
> objects.  I've setup a few slices of data I think most people can
> appreciate:
> 
> 1- Image browser.  This'll display all the bits&pictures from the ROM.  You
> can right click images to save them as .png files.
> 2- Sound browser.  Double click to hear the sound, or right click to save
> as .aiff files.
> 3- Blob browser.  Other binary objects.  Double click to view inside a
> HexFiend window.  Right click to export.
> 4- Giant list o' strings.  Because hey, strings are interesting :)
> 
> And #5 -- an interactive NEWT/0 console.  Here you can type in NewtonScript
> expressions, and navigate the NewtonScript objects just by expanding them.
> And while looking at NewtonScript objects is fun, it is sad to see
> "function, # arg(s)" over and over.  To remedy that, this tool includes a
> copy of Jason Harper's ViewFrame.  It will attempt to decompile any
> NewtonScript function it encounters in the console print out.  ViewFrame
> has been a good source of finding NEWT/0 bugs -- but I haven't fixed them
> all yet, so not all functions will decompile.  And oddly none in the 1.0b1
> image decompile -- significant bytecode change?
> 
> I believe that's about all for now...
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve
> 
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