[NTLK] Factory calibration problem

Victor Rehorst victor at chuma.org
Tue Jun 26 15:28:00 EDT 2018


I got back to this project, and got my old laptop setup with the right 
stuff so I can at least read SRAM and linear flash from Linux, and write 
SRAM cards.  Writing to flash is going to require digging up some very 
very old software or writing some.

In any case, I armed a 2MB SRAM card with a fresh battery.  Wrote the K 
diags image to it.  And I can't get it to boot in an eMate. Holding down 
reset after inserting the card, it never beeps like it should.  I can't 
get the diags to run.

On the other hand, at one point while trying this procedure a few times, 
I restored power to the eMate (it doesn't have a battery installed) and 
it DID give me a BEEEP before booting normally... but I had already 
ejected the card.



On 2018-06-13 05:18 PM, Victor Rehorst wrote:
> Sure, I could drop $400 USD on a USB linear flash reader, or only $100 
> on a PCI card solution.  But what would be the fun in that?
>
> To make a really long story short: I have a circa 2006 laptop with a 
> PCI-to-CardBus bridge and slot.  The HDD in this machine is dead, 
> making installing and running an operating system a USB key based affair.
>
> Initially I tried Linux-es from USB, but in later Linux kernels (2.6+) 
> it got harder to make it detect any old SRAM or linear flash card as a 
> memory device.  I think I got pretty far with Damn Small Linux, since 
> it's still kernel 2.4 based, but it's a really weird distro to work 
> with.  I'm not even sure that kernel 2.4 supports my CardBus controller.
>
> Then I thought I could use DOS and the old DOS-based Intel flash tools 
> that I archived on UNNA.org many many, *many* years ago (thanks, 
> me!).  Setting up DOS 6.22 gave me bad, bad flashbacks ;) But those 
> tools don't want to detect my CardBus controller.
>
> Anyways, I just found some more information about the Linux path which 
> I hadn't seen before that looks very helpful, so I'll probably get 
> back to it soon.
>
>
> On 2018-06-13 02:59 AM, Matthias Melcher wrote:
>>
>>> On Jun 13, 2018, at 06:46, Victor Rehorst <victor at chuma.org> wrote:
>>> If only I had some 1990s era laptop hardware still...
>> What exactly do you need?
>>
>> Also, writing linear flash cards via USB should be solvable.
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