[NTLK] Newton Mp2x00 Extract the ROM, request for help

[Matthias Melcher]

> On Jan 31, 2015, at 3:03 PM, Paul Guyot <pguyot at kallisys.net> wrote:
> 
>> I have a self-made hardware that can read your ROM card and put the result into an 8MB file. I am not sure though if you can do anything useful with that file. EInstein will probably not run very well or at all because some patches are needed that are likely not at the same address in this ROM.
> 
> Einstein is ROM-agnostic and will definitely work with Watson's ROM. The retargeted version might not work, though, but the llvm version definitely does. I always had the Watson ROM in mind as we don't have any documentation or debug information about it (as opposed to eMate, MP2x00 US and MP2100-D). The only incompatibility I am thinking about is that Watson might refuse to load packages included in Einstein ROM extension (typically NewtTest).

I'll be happy to read the ROM physically if everything else fails.

As for having new ROMs made, I think that that is a very expensive way to go. Instead, it is quite simple to develop a new ROM board that has Flash RAMs with enough capacity for eight different ROMs that can be paged around using smart software, and that can be reprogrammed while they remain in the ROM slot using even smarter software. 

It's even possible to add flash storage to the builtin 4MB on the ROM board, using (outdated) Flash Chips without changing anything in the NewtonOS.

Matthias