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custom rom making for CE - now the fun really begins!

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Geared2003 Page Icon Posted 2007-12-04 12:13 PM
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cmonex - 2007-12-03 2:00 AM

Geared2003: very good point about making a "kitchen" - i can do that quite quickly.
of course if someone doesn't want to deal with the extra steps they'll have less space in the rom, i think those steps aren't that hard at all, please can you tell me which parts about that were not clear or seemed too difficult?
and, again, xda-devs rom making is similar, shifting files around most of the time, can be tedious sometimes, yes. but nothing too bad..


The extra space is good, but newbies like me prefer easier things. It may not be hard to follow each step, but there are just too many things to do !
So, I'd suggest a ROM update kit which would keep the standard 900c ROM size first. If you can release such an update kit, it would be very nice indeed...

Edited by Geared2003 2007-12-04 12:13 PM
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CE Geek Page Icon Posted 2007-12-04 5:23 PM
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-05 1:24 AM
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kingarthur - 2007-12-04 5:47 PM

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cmonex - 2007-11-30 11:22 PM

if you have problems with determining the rom layout... i can describe the header in that image for you. that'll determine it nicely.



Cmonex, can you describe the rom layout for the S1?

Thanks



yes, but in future please don't PM, this stuff is better suited for this thread. thanks.


1) layout:
your rom is nand so all the XIP addresses refer to ram.
RAM starts at 0x8C000000 (virtual) for your device.
rom has three parts, xipkernel, xipchain data and OS.
xipkernel starts at 0x8C000000, size may vary up to 0x200000 (original size is 0x142B00). (stored at 0x20000 in flash, i.e. in a dumped image)
xipchain starts at 0x8C200000 and is 0x528 bytes (0x220000 in flash)
OS starts at 0x8C201000 (0x221000 in flash) and max size, well, 0x15e1000 bytes according to MBR in your device's rom. according to dump there is 0x159F000 bytes space for it though. and the rom dumper is supposed to read partition sizes to make the image size correct.
another size info... xipchain entry for it says the max size would be 0x1400000 bytes. so if you want to make it bigger you might edit that in _XIPCHAIN_ENTRY, the one named "NK". but i never tried this modification, so you should be careful. example, for the 900c, i can see the max size info is ignored as i made it bigger while never editing the max size info in there!

anyway, right now your OS is quite a lot smaller so you can fit in some extra stuff

but note here. the rom dump that was made (on two avic s1's) was not fully clean (no idea why), so there is some data here and there, where it would actually be empty space. some more data is directly following the OS (and then lots of empty space for your rom ), i assume that is junk too, but if not then be careful - i'll give 99% chance it is junk from the look of it.

ah also your OS type is BINFS not XIP RAMIMAGE (according to MBR info), so if you make a bigger OS it should still be fine i.e. not consuming more RAM. like it would if it were real XIP - i've never had a chance to play with BINFS devices so this is just a guess, if your RAM decreases let me know.



2) then, you asked in PM:
Quote
As well, which of the tools should I use to convert the .bin file to the XIP format?


i'm not sure i understand your question, there is no converting to XIP format, rom image contents are either XIP structure or not. if you meant the MS BIN stuff, forget it, your device doesn't use it.
for that the flashable image format is:

first 0x210 bytes are fixed, just copy them from the flashable image i made for you
then, uh, i'll just quote from my post on gpspassion (http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=97599&whichpage=2):

at 0x210, for some reason we get the start of XIPkernel (on the airis it is 0x8c000000, in little endian. happens to be RAM start for the airis), and the length (i won't tell you now, so you can practice )
after that for some reason it gives kernel entrypoint(?), 0x8c001000.
after that 00 00 until 0x22C, which i assume gives the number of images in the whole image. it is 3 for us.
then, finally, at 0x230 we get all the info on these three images.
first one is xipkernel so again 0x8c000000 and its size in the next four bytes, second one is xipchain data start, and its size, finally OS image start and its size.
these are all RAM locations. that is because the airis has NAND which cant do XIP but the OS is still in XIP format so it is loaded into RAM as a compromise.


i was talking about an airis PNA but same header structure for avic really.
so you edit the sizes when you make a new flashable image, the start addresses are static, do not ever change them. also xipchain size 0x528 should not be changed.
finally there is a checksum txt. just use some tool (hex workshop for example) to calculate a simple 32 bit checksum for the image and enter that in the winceimg.cks file, and also the size of the image in bytes.




Edited by cmonex 2007-12-05 1:53 AM
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-05 1:39 AM
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Rich Hawley - 2007-12-04 12:41 PM

Cmonex, how much space does (or is it do...having a brain freeze here) the extra steps free up and make available for applications?

Rich



i'd say "do" but don't trust me

extra space is 0x1FC000 bytes i.e. 2080768 bytes, which can be twice as much because the files are stored compressed but for example the compression ratio for the EVB runtime files came out at 1:3 which was very nice


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Geared2003 - 2007-12-04 6:13 PM

The extra space is good, but newbies like me prefer easier things. It may not be hard to follow each step, but there are just too many things to do !
So, I'd suggest a ROM update kit which would keep the standard 900c ROM size first. If you can release such an update kit, it would be very nice indeed...



OK, i'll do it today. i still don't know why i didn't think of making a "kitchen" thing earlier...
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citivolus Page Icon Posted 2007-12-11 9:29 PM
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I've been away for a bit and just caught wind of this thread...before I get too excited, does this mean that I can use the tutorial and tools to update the ROM on my Netbook Pro to WM5 or WM6?
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-12 9:19 PM
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um, no, that would require much more... updating to CE5 is easier, than that, but even that is very hard.

still, you can improve on ce.net a lot with this
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citivolus Page Icon Posted 2007-12-13 2:13 PM
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can you describe how to go about updating the Netbook Pro to CE5?
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-13 7:09 PM
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as i said very hard

code needs to be written.

Edited by cmonex 2007-12-13 7:09 PM
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Fred Flintstone Page Icon Posted 2007-12-13 9:43 PM
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Cmonex

I have a NEC 900c with Firmware Version: P530_42 1.8.5
Bootloader version: 4.5.1-6.

I sure would like to have a better understanding of upgrading to bootloader 4.10

I know there are ALL KINDS OF DO NOTS when flashing 4.5.1-6
The first email I sent you was JUST NOT CORRECT on my part.
The second one I sent you I hope was a bit better on point on the
correct was to flash this troublesome firmware, but will admit I am
still not sure; and sure do not want to brick this fine hand held.
I have done a few flashes on other devices in the past, radio type
controllers, PPC's, not including the easy stuff like bios and the
firmware in several CDR's/DVD's ie. I do more RF related kinda
stuff and all most every kinda RF device has some kinda cpu and
support firmware on it, so I've been flashing stuff for a long time,
It just seems that 4.5.1-6 is a bit more cranky getting it right.

I do not have SABOOT.NB0 and if UPDATE.EXE is the same as in XIP_CMONEX_V2_0
I d have it I would like to update date my 900c into a bit of a cooler treasure thanks to
your hard work, but would like a bit more help.

Would like to up the bootloader first which seems like the best plan of attack before doing
anything else to the 900c.

Thanks
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-14 9:13 AM
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hey, i believe i have just replied to your email.
please answer my question in it, thanks.
(and yeah, the second one was better )
anyway it is not hard to get rid of this bootloader, just need to do the correct procedure.
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Fred Flintstone Page Icon Posted 2007-12-15 2:07 AM
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cmonex - 2007-12-14 9:13 AM

please answer my question in it, thanks.


Took care of it; cornputing is much cooler in Bedrock USA,
A little more work in the Gravel Pitt and the other
I mentioned will be headed your way this weekend!
Many Thanks,
Fred
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-16 4:11 PM
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kitchen for nec 900c being uploaded


as soon as it finishes uploading i'll post again, it seems the allowed editing time will time out by the time it finishes

it's ~90MB because of the example rom images i put in it and because of the packages etc

have fun!

now no excuse for not making your own rom!!!

Edited by cmonex 2007-12-16 4:28 PM
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-16 4:33 PM
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KITCHEN DOWNLOAD LINK: http://hpcmonex.net/nec900/files/releases/kitchenfinalnec_v1_0.zip

the download is 92,048,848 bytes.

let me know if this makes editing easier or anything, i'd appreciate feedback - if i don't get any then i'll guess this is good enough and work on something else instead in the future.

oh also any questions are welcome, as said, so if something is unclear that should not be a problem in the way of rom editing!

also, romtool pack is UPDATED: http://hpcmonex.net/izemize/docs/romtoolpack.zip
(just forgot to edit the date in it, heh)
probably last revision unless there is some big mistake in it...

instead, coming soon is 1) WM rom editing docs (yeah mainly for xda-developers.com) 2) how to hack into CE devices without documented bootloader features and flashable rom formats, and examples for working with some CE.net hpc's and especially PNA's

Edited by cmonex 2007-12-16 5:24 PM
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2007-12-16 8:19 PM
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i realized i forgot some things in readme.txt... will not change and reupload 90MB so it is here: http://hpcmonex.net/nec900/files/releases/quickkitchenreadme.txt


also all the links are at http://hpcmonex.net/nec900/customroms.html

Edited by cmonex 2007-12-16 8:30 PM
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CE Geek Page Icon Posted 2007-12-16 8:31 PM
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cmonex - 2007-12-16 1:11 PM
now no excuse for not making your own rom!!!


'Cept, of course, if you don't have an H/PC with a flashable ROM.

Nice work (yet again), cmonex. Everything in there now but the kitchen sink. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Edited by CE Geek 2007-12-16 8:32 PM
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