Author Topic: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320 (Read 16764 times)

critor · « **on:** February 22, 2011, 09:39:31 pm »

I've purchased 2 identical basic TI-Nspire prototypes.

They are very rare. Have a look there:
http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=galerie&action=img&id_gal=9&id_img=129

They come with the oldest 1.1 OS/boot1/boot2/diags I've ever seen:

* OS 1.1.7320
* Boot1 1.1.7314
* Boot2 1.1.7314
* Diags 1.1.7387

They are detected as standard "TI-Nspire handheld" by Windows, but...

- None of the TI-Nspire Computer Link versions is listing them... Not even the 1.0 version, not even by updating/downdating the driver, not even by using the Computer Link 1.0 driver...

- The "Send OS" menu item is disabled.

- Unlike my other prototypes, they cannot exchange data with commercial TI-Nspire BAS/CAS, prototype TI-Nspire CAS/CAS+, and not even between themselves! The "Send" menu item simply returns immediatly, doing nothing.

If I'm guessing right, the USB link protocol had not been implemented yet in the 1.1.7320 OS. Seems it is going to be hard to dump anything without USB linking...

Any idea?

bsl · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2011, 11:12:53 pm »

Sounds like you might have to go to the hardware level.
Open the calculator and compare with a production calculator, and if you are
lucky you might find a JTAG interface on those older calcs. Then you can dump the OS.
They got the OS on there somehow ....

I saw an article where one person had to open an Hp Ipaq for example and soldered to the JTAG connections - usually 3 or 4 wires.
He had to do it because he bricked it, and reflashed his boot loader.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2011, 11:20:23 pm »

Interesting, but it really sucks there are prototypes that looks so much like real calcs...

critor · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2011, 06:03:04 am »

I might have found a way to dump the 1.7 OS/Boot2/Diags (but not the 1.7 Boot1 yet).

In that very old diags software, the "additional functions" menu has more options.
It has a "NAND Flash read" option, which lets you input a nandflash address and then shows the Flash content.
You can move in the flash by using arrow keys.

Have a look at the start of the boot2:

Then the idea would be to stuck an arrow key and use a webcam for hours...

I'll have to dump:
* 00004200-0015A800 for the boot2
* 0016B000-00210000 for the diags
* the OS which seems to start at 00221040

I can take the time to do it but once done, I'll probably need some help with the video files... Does anybody have an OCR software that could then generate the hex data from the videos?

Or an easier idea?

Thanks.

bsl · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2011, 09:53:56 am »

I have Adobe Acrobat - it works for OCR.
If all you have is hexadecimal digits [0-9A-F] it should work.

I have had problems having it distinguish small "L" from ones "1", and zeroes from capital "O" in other cases.
Look alike characters tend to be confusing to the OCR.
It gets worse when the Font size gets smaller.

TIfanx1999 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 24, 2011, 09:01:52 am »

Didn't someone(Benjamin Moody?) do something similar to Dump the TI-81? Maybe he could give you some advice on the setup he used.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #6 on:** February 25, 2011, 07:52:47 pm »

Yeah that's what he did if I remember. Apparently the digital camera needs good lightning, though, and a good memory card+power source, because it had to film during one hour or so.

critor · « **Reply #7 on:** February 25, 2011, 07:58:50 pm »

The nand reader seem to freeze randomly.
(after severall minutes with the down-arrow key stuck)

It means more work for me, but it's still possible.
(although I might lose my nerves when I'm going to film the OS... I've filmed 66% of the boot2 up to now)

But the other problem,is that it means more workk for the OCR too, as each video segment will have to be calibrated separately.

Goplat · « **Reply #8 on:** February 25, 2011, 08:19:27 pm »

Quote from: critor on February 25, 2011, 07:58:50 pm

The nand reader seem to freeze randomly.
(after severall minutes with the down-arrow key stuck)

I checked out this routine in DIAGS 1.1.9266 (it's still there, just not called from anywhere, so I can test it in nspire_emu by hex-editing) and it has a bug - it uses another 72 bytes of stack memory every time you move up or down. Since the stack is only 32kB, this means after about 70 flash pages (420 movements) it will corrupt the heap

If you want to save a little time (and a lot of wear on the keypad connector) by not having to reboot, just leave the reader (by pressing esc - going back to the address entry screen with enter does not free the memory) whenever you've gone far enough that it's about to freeze.

Lionel Debroux · « **Reply #9 on:** February 26, 2011, 02:26:28 am »

That's a silly bug...

bsl · « **Reply #10 on:** February 26, 2011, 11:30:14 am »

Does it accept a Ti-84+ keypad ?
And if so - see if there are undocumented calls for this prototype .

critor · « **Reply #11 on:** February 27, 2011, 01:27:20 pm »

Quote from: bsl on February 26, 2011, 11:30:14 am

Does it accept a Ti-84+ keypad ?
And if so - see if there are undocumented calls for this prototype .

It does accept a TI-84+ keypad.
It's running a 2.42 TI-84+ system.
I've dumped it, and it is different from the 2.42 system included in production OS 1.1. According to my hex reader, there are many differences, and many of them are in the OS area.

I have an unrelated question.
According to the above tests, it seems that prototype cannot exchange data through USB.
Where is the USB linking code?
In the OS? In the Boot2? In both of them?

I'm just wondering if I could remove the OS, then send a more recent compatible OS (which I don't have for now) and use it to dump Boot1, Boot2 & diags.
But if this 1.1.7xxx boot2 has no USB linking support, then the calculator will be totally unusable.

Goplat · « **Reply #12 on:** February 27, 2011, 01:35:20 pm »

Quote from: critor on February 27, 2011, 01:27:20 pm

According to the above tests, it seems that prototype cannot exchange data through USB.
Where is the USB linking code?
In the OS? In the Boot2? In both of them?

Both of them. But judging from the picture you posted, this boot2 is noticeably smaller than the later versions (0x1742EC bytes uncompressed, compared to 0x199B58 bytes for 1.1.8310) so most likely the linking code is not present in it.

bsl · « **Reply #13 on:** February 27, 2011, 03:10:35 pm »

Quote from: critor on February 27, 2011, 01:27:20 pm

I'm just wondering if I could remove the OS, then send a more recent compatible OS (which I don't have for now) and use it to dump Boot1, Boot2 & diags.
But if this 1.1.7xxx boot2 has no USB linking support, then the calculator will be totally unusable.

You still have the option of upgrading the later developer boot2 through RS232

critor · « **Reply #14 on:** February 28, 2011, 10:13:05 am »

Quote from: bsl on February 27, 2011, 03:10:35 pm

Quote from: critor on February 27, 2011, 01:27:20 pm
I'm just wondering if I could remove the OS, then send a more recent compatible OS (which I don't have for now) and use it to dump Boot1, Boot2 & diags.
But if this 1.1.7xxx boot2 has no USB linking support, then the calculator will be totally unusable.
You still have the option of upgrading the later developer boot2 through RS232

Did you manage to build an adapter?

Author Topic: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320 (Read 16764 times)

critor

TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

bsl

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

DJ Omnimaga

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

critor

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

bsl

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

TIfanx1999

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

DJ Omnimaga

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

critor

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

Goplat

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

Lionel Debroux

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

bsl

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

critor

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

Goplat

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

bsl

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320

critor

Re: TI-Nspire prototype 1.1.7320