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Messages - jcabrer

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151
Zaurus - pdaXrom / M.e.s.s. Native Compile On Sl-6000
« on: August 29, 2005, 05:29:43 pm »
Quote
any update?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93544\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

How's this for an update?  I've compiled MAME v.0.85 with support for 5061 games! [ Invalid Attachment ]

Ok.  I know you'll all be begging for it, so who wants to host a copy of the executeable?

send me an email at jcabrer@hra.com

My ultimate goal is to have an IPKG, but I'm still not 100% sure about creating one that will run anywhere (NAND, CF, SD, etc...).  Also I think it might be nice to include a frontend for those less tech savvy folks out there?

152
Zaurus - pdaXrom / M.e.s.s. Native Compile On Sl-6000
« on: August 25, 2005, 12:09:43 pm »
Quote
i don't know if your interested but i have a mame version that can run pacman and ms pacman just fine but galaga runs slughish.

how fast does your mame run galaga?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93147\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Right now, everything is running a bit choppy, but playable, especially if sound is off.  So far, I've run Atari 400, Atari 2600, CoCo, TS1000, spectrum, QL, PDP11, Vectrex (Artwork need to be converted to 16 bpp, but it works).  I'm going to try using SDL later, but first I have to get the sdl dev files installed.

I have not tried a full MAME compile (Only MESS so far) since the last attempt died when I ran out of memory.  I'm looking for a way to create a swap file on a network drive, but I only have samba shares, and mkswap does not seem too happy about that.  I'm looking at NFS, but that will take some time.

Does anyone know if I can post the binary as an attachment here?

153
Zaurus - pdaXrom / M.e.s.s. Native Compile On Sl-6000
« on: August 24, 2005, 01:45:56 pm »
I've been working on compiling M.A.M.E/M.E.S.S natively on my SL-6000 running pdaXrom RC10 and I'm happy to report some success!

I started with the source for 0.85 (I'm working up to 0.99) and made a few changes to the makefile.  So far I've been able to compile full M.E.S.S and the Tiny M.A.M.E. build which only supports Stratofighter and Raiga.  The full build of M.A.M.E. segfaults when memory is exausted, but I have a few tricks left to try.  With M.E.S.S. I have run Vectrex, Colecovision, and PDP11.  I'll be trying Comodore 64 and Timex Sinclair later.

What I need now is some help.  Specificaly I need someone that has experience building ipkg files to help me package the M.E.S.S. port, and I need a feed where this can be hosted.  For now, I'll start making it available via Shareaza P2P.  I'll post here again when I know the file name.

Right now I'm going to concentrate on building a Frontend as well as creating .rc files to organize roms/sounds/artwork/etc...

BTW I'm also working on a port of Daphne for playing Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, but I'm having a hard time with meeting all the dependencies.

154
Zaurus - pdaXrom / Tutorial: Pdaxrom On Sl-6000
« on: August 17, 2005, 04:17:43 pm »
I'll take requests if you would like to have things answered here.

155
Zaurus - pdaXrom / Tutorial: Pdaxrom On Sl-6000
« on: August 17, 2005, 03:02:41 pm »
Updated for 1.1.0 Beta 1

First a disclaimer:  I am not responsible for any damage caused by the advice I give.  I do my best to give information that is helpful AND accurate, but hey, everybody makes mistakes now and then.  This tutorial will address all of those questions that need answers as well as questions that need asking.  A lot of this information can be found in other places, I may not always give credit to others, but it is by no means intentional.

Tutorial for SL-6000 owners wanting to run pdaXrom ( Starting with Katherin RC10 )

This tutorial assumes that you have already decided on or been coerced into installing pdaXrom on your "virgin" SL-6000.

Note: An SL-6000 (or any other Zaurus model for that matter) is considered a "Virgin" when it has never been touched by a ROM Distro other than the one given to it by Sharp.  Of course some of you have taken the plunge already and maybe you went back to the original rom, but as we all know, without surgery, you can only be a virgin once.

Chapter 1 - Flashing your SL-6000 with pdaXrom Katherin RC10

There are various methods for accomplishing this.  I will describe the only one that I have tried.  Please remember, "Bricked" ain't just a river in Egypt!  If you don't/can't pay attention to detailed instructions, stop reading this or get professional help.

Synopsis of the flashing procedure
1.  Obtain the Guylhem ROM Distro for SL-6000 (This step is optional)
2.  Obtain the pdaXrom Katherin RC10 distro for SL-6000
3.  Perform the post-flash procedures
4.  Test things out.

The Devil Is In The Details

One thing you should have before you begin is a 128Mb Compact Flash Card formated with windows FAT to hold the install files.  You can probably do it with 64Mb, but I can't say that all the files will fit for both Guylhem and pdaXrom.

1.  Obtain the Guylhem ROM Distro for SL-6000 (optional)

There is only one reason for installing the Guylhem ROM distro before pdaXrom.  To make a long story short, there are misgivings about various ways or re-sizing the SL-6000 partitions, but some have found that installing Guylhem ROM does the resize as part of the install procedure.  You can skip this step, and everything should still work fine, but it will cost you a bit of storage space.  I'm not sure how much.  My SL-6000 show a root partition size of 58368 1k-blocks.  Any larger, and you risk overwriting the protions of NAND memory that store the routines that allow the Zaurus to be flashed and re-flashed, the result of which is "Bricked"!

Follow this link for Guylhem ROM installation instructions

You only need to go to step "E."  Then you can come back here and continue.

2.  Obtain the pdaXrom Katherin RC10 distro for SL-6000

This is the main event.  After this you'll wonder why anyone runs anything but pdaXrom.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Get the pdaXrom RC10 distro here

There is a nice howto here on installing pdaXrom on SL-6000, but it has steps which we will need to skip, so read it, but don't follow it (at least not all of it).  Instead, do this:
(0)- Plug your SL-6000 into the external power cable.  DO NOT FLASH YOUR ZAURUS USING BATTERY POWER!!!

(1)-Put these files on your card: You can download these 3 files from: http://212.10.30.205/rc10/Zaurus-SL6000/ka...n-rc10-tosa.zip

tools.tar
initrd.bin
updater.sh

(2)-Put your card on your Zaurus and push the reset button (found on the back of the unit) with the tip of your stylus. Now, hold the 'OK' button and push the 'ON' button.

(3)-You will see the "maintenance menu". Go to number 4 (update).

(4)-When your Zaurus reboots, you will see the pdaXrom installer!

You will be tempted to "Explore" these menus.  Resist!

(5)-You will see the "maintenance menu". Go to number 4 (update).

(6)-When your Zaurus reboots and shows the pdaXrom installer, go to the first choice (Install new ROM), press OK, and wait...

Now pdaXrom is auto-installing

(7)-(This Step Removed)

(8)-When the installer returns to the main menu, select reboot and press OK.

(9)-Now pdaXrom is installed, let me explain to you how you can configure it.

3.  Perform the post-flash procedures

The system should begin booting.  You will notice a Bluish pdaXrom banner at the top of your screen, and scrolling text below.

The first boot will require a lot of time.  This is because ssh needs to generate several keys.  Very intense calculations...  Don't get antsy.  Just wait it out.

When the system is completely booted, you will be presented with the Login: prompt.

enter "root" and you will be at the command line.

Before doing anything else, do the following:
[TYPE]

tar --no-same-owner -xf /root/.home_default.tar

[PRESS ENTER]

This configures your X11 environment to look pretty.  If you skip this, your X11 session will be impossible to use.

Now you are ready to

[TYPE]

startx

[PRESS ENTER]

Follow the screen calibration procedure

You are done!

If you screw up calibration, and can't get a workable X mouse after, reboot the Z
and run ts_calibrate after logging in as root.


4.  Test things out.


Have a look around.  Pretty isn't it?  There are monsters lurking in dark corners, but we will bring them into the light for you to play with.

Chapter 2 - Networking

Before we start installing all kinds of good things, we need to address some issues that will make life easier.

0.  Fix some annoying power control problems.
1.  Get WIFI working.
2.  Get USB Cradle Networking working.
3.  Get a local feed going for installs using Apache Web Server

First off, let me just say that Suspend works ok on the SL-6000.  It's when you wake up that you may have a headache.  I'll give a detailed fix for this later, but for now we will implement a quick temporary fix.

Open the Light and Power management and set the Suspend and Screen Off values to Zero (0) for both Battery and AC Power.  That's it.

 Ok.  On to the wireless.  In its current state, RC10 Wireless networking cannot be enabled using the GUI utilities.  For those of you who don't know how to use the console or vi, I appologize, but this is not a tutorial for that.

For this example I need a few things in advance.

Wireless Router:
SSID or ESSID = ECHO
Router IP Address = 192.168.200.1 (or 192.168.0.1, or 192.168.1.1, or what ever your router happens to be)

edit the file /etc/wlan/wlan.conf

and locate the following line:

SSID_wlan0=""""

change to:

SSID_wlan0="ECHO" (or whatever you Router SSID is)

That's it.  Save the file and move on.

# cp /etc/wlan/wlancfg-DEFAULT /etc/wlan/wlancfg-ECHO

create a new file called wifiup in your home directory

#cd                              (gets you to /home/root)
#vi wifiup

Add the following and save the file:

killall dhcpcd
/etc/rc.d/init.d/wlan start
dhcpcd wlan0
ifconfig

Once the file is saved, make it executable, and create a symlink in /usr/bin

# chmod 755 ./wifiup
# ln -s /home/root/wifiup /usr/bin/wifiup

Now you can activate wireless by typing wifiup

Similarly, you could create a file called wifidown with the following content to disable wireless

killall dhcpcd
/etc/rc.d/init.d/wlan stop
ifconfig

again

# chmod 755 ./wifidown
# ln -s /home/root/wifiup /usr/bin/wifidown

Later we might create icons to do this, but probably this will be fixed in the next release.

Now that wireless is working (It should be working), we can set up the Package manager to install from a remote feed.  We want to do this because we need Apache for our local feed, and X11vnc because typing all this stuff on that little keyboard is getting harder and harder.

If you open the Package Manager and look at the settings tab, you will see that there is a feed already there.  Remove it.

In the New Feed:  type

http://212.10.30.205/rc10/Zaurus-SL6000/feed

and click the Add button.  Then add

http://www.pdaxrom.org/unstable

if you want the unstable feed.

A word about installing on SD and CF cards.  By default, the Package Manager wants to install everything on the root partition.  This partition only has about 25Mb free, so you want to avoid installing there unless you really have to.  If you install there by accident, you can always uninstall and try again.

There are 3 packages that I know of that MUST be installed to /.  They are Apache, MySQL Server, Apache PHP Module, Jikes Java Compiler, and the Java Classes.  With those exceptions, everything else I have installed can go on the SD or CF cards...

Well, not exactly.  You see, I have a 1Gb SD with and ext2 partition, and a 1Gb CF with vFAT partition.  The CF card is fine for holding things like files of all kinds (tar.gz, mp3/ogg, wav, txt, pdaXrom installation stuff, feed files), but it bombs when you try and extract most tar.gz files to it.  That's where the SD card comes in handy.  The ext2 partition never complains.  You can install IPKs there all day long, and for the most part they will create their own symlinks on the root.

Coming in Chapter 2, 3, 4, 5...

-Setting up Apache on your SL-6000 so you don't have to get you software from remote feeds.

-Configuring your local feed

-Getting WIFI working

-Getting USB Cradle Network Link Working

-Fixing Direction pad so that it correctly adapts to a rotated screen.

-Adding a second rotation button for opposite direction

-Mounting network drives from Windows PCs

-Installing a working development environment

156
Zaurus - pdaXrom / Sl-6000 Usb Networking Using Xp Driver
« on: August 04, 2005, 06:42:52 pm »
As is too often the case, every link out there that addresses USB networking is either completely wrong, largely incomplete, or dealing with another subject altogether.  Let's be clear:  I am trying to configure the SL-6000 (not 5500 not 3000, you get the idea) to network via an XP (not Linux, Not OSX) machine using only the connection provided by the USB cradle.  Oh yeah, and incase you didn't see the Forum Topic, this is for pdaXrom only (not Opie, Sharp, Guylhem, etc...)

The first bits of missing information were:
1.  Where do you get the XP USB/Ethernet Driver?

Here: --> http://apogee.rockville.md.us/zaurus/feed/ndisusb.zip

2.  How do you install ndisusb?

The answer was nowhere to be found.  Here is the solution:

I'm assuming Windows 2000 or XP in "Classic" mode so that things like the control panels are all easily available.

Click AddHardware control panel and if it asks if you have already connected this hardware to your computer, SAY YES!

Now select:
> ADD NEW HARDWARE DEVICE.
> INSTALL HARDWARE THAT I SELECT
> NETWORK ADAPTERS
>> Manufacturer MICROSOFT
>> Network Adapter HAVE DISK
browse to the location where you extracted ndisusb.zip and select the ini file located there.
Click NEXT any time it comes up.
Click Continue Anyway any time it comes up.
Click finish once.

That's it.  ndisUSB is there.

Next Question:

3.  How do you know which USB port ndisUSB goes to?  Do you even need to know?

Hell if I know!

4.  Why does windows try to detect SL-6000 device when I plug it in to the cradle?

See the answer to number 3.

These are the questions that must be answered.  I think if we can get these resolved, the rest of the configuration is easy.

Comments?

157
Zaurus - pdaXrom / Largest Possible Root Partition On 6000
« on: July 29, 2005, 03:08:19 pm »
I've run across bits here and there, but I havent seend any specifics on root partition sizes on the SL-6000.

When I first installed pdaXrom RC10, I used the partition resize to 47Mb.  Later I came across an article that described installing Guylhem Rom first and then pdaXrom over that.  That got me a bit more.

I guess my question is how big can the root partition be on the 6000, and what are the risks if any when exceeding 60Mb.

158
Zaurus - pdaXrom / Zaurus Ui Freezes If Suspended Too Long
« on: July 29, 2005, 12:41:20 pm »
For your consideration:

Let us assume that you have set your screen to blank at 10 minutes and suspend at 30.
Let's also assume that there is some not so perfect behavior in the clock time keeping.

OK, so now you manually suspend because your Girl/Boy friend just showed up.  After 15 minutes you excuse your self to the rest room, and secretly try to power up your Z.  The screen comes on momentarily, even the light may come on, but it powers back off.

In frustration you go back outside for a while, and try again later. say an hour or so.  Still no luck?  RESET.  Then it works.

What's happening is that the suspen timers are not being reset when you power off.  They only reset when a screen tap or some keys are registered.  The result is that if your system wakes up and sees that its suspend timer has expired, it goes back into suspend thinking its been active the whole time.

The real solution to this problem is any fix that actually resets the suspend/screen blank timers when the system wakes up, or right before it suspends.

159
Zaurus - pdaXrom / Zaurus Sl-6000 Rc10 Feed Packages Incomplete
« on: July 23, 2005, 03:32:34 pm »
Has anyone else noticed that the rc10 Packages file for SL-6000 is out of sync with the contents of the feed directory?  I was going to grab apache when I noticed that it won't list as available

160
5x00 Hardware / Dead Sl5500 Repair - Part Identified!
« on: June 24, 2005, 06:35:18 pm »
Quote
jcabrer,

what's the problem ?
It's available from SHARP parts service.
SHARP Part # : VHISP6650EU-1L
Part name : "IC (SP6650)"
Price : About 9,-- EUR without VAT.

If you're a European user, we'll have
no problem to get one for you.
If you're located in the US, contact a local
SHARP dealer and ask for the part #.

///TRIsoft

Marc Stephan
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85568\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

SHARP Parts Service?  Easier said than done.  If you know of one, please give me their contact info.  Thanks.

161
5x00 Hardware / Dead Sl5500 Repair - Part Identified!
« on: June 23, 2005, 09:07:00 pm »
I've been putting this off for about 6 months now, but I finally got around to fully dismantelling my SL5500 to find out exactly what FRIED when I accidentally inserted a REVERSED-POLARITY power adapter.

It turns out the the damage was not so easy to spot at first, but in the end, a small hole on the top of a very small component gave the first clue.  Luckily the SL5500 has two of these components side by side, so I was able to get the part number off the good one.

The part is an SP6650EU High Efficiency 600mA Synchronous Buck Regulator made by Sipex.  The trick now will be finding a vendor that will sell me these in low quantities, or finding another dead zaurus owner willing to be an organ transplant donor.

I guess there are a few of us out there with this same problem, so maybe we could pool our resources and fix them all at once?

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