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PEx ROM Project

trag

Well-known member
@jimjamyahauk How were the OF dumps made? Were they dumped with software or are they copies of the actual chips?

Or more to the point, how were the chips in your PEx updated? Did you take them out and have them programmed with code from the Digibarn chips. Or was there some kind of utility that allowed you to update them while they were in the machine?

Ah, I got halfway smart and looked at the provided files and see that there are .bin files. Easy enough to throw those on a Flash chip. But there are three different dumps of the 2.3 firmware. Any idea which one ended up being good/was used?

@Trash80toHP_Mini We may want to pop your chips out of the sockets and make a copy before trying anyupdating experiments. Actually, we can just pop them out and set them aside, and program other chips to put in their place, I guess.

Unfortunately, I don't think those tags shed any light on what version they are. Sigh.

@haplain (or any other PEx owners who are lurking) any version numbers on your chips?
 
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trag

Well-known member
Regarding the OF dumps. The one with no number designator is about 255KB per chip. The files in the one labeled OF2_3_dump2 are only 5KB, so that can't be a good dump.

The one labeled OF2_3_dump3 is 285KB per chip.

Flash chips are designated in bits, and I have some 2Mb (256KB) Flash chips in one of the boxes I got down from the attic yesterday.

If we need 4Mb (512KB) Flash chips, I'll have to go hunt down box 65. I know it's in sector AB. It's a difficult area to shift other boxes out of the way, while looking for the one needed.

So, is the 255KB dump good, or do we need the 285KB dump?
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
IIRC, one of hap's machines was identical to mine right down to the legends on the PLCCs.

@haplain can you resurrect your thread of amazing finds? I think you've got detailed pics of the PExboard you have/had that's the twin of mine. I can't seem to find it.
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Given the same PLCC legends and EVTA level of those two PEx specimens, methinks captainserial's ROM dump is the one for me. ISTR Hap's is identical, right down to the PLCC legend?
 

trag

Well-known member
Given the same PLCC legends and EVTA level of those two PEx specimens, methinks captainserial's ROM dump is the one for me. ISTR Hap's is identical, right down to the PLCC legend?

I can certainly make some copies of Captainserial's ROM. The only obstacle is running it through Rob's decoder. Anyone have a Ubuntu or Snow Leopard machine already set up? I'm really trying to avoid the work laptop during my week off and I don't have an Intel Mac setup.

Captainserial ROM dump: TriPExROM.zip

Link to Rob's decoder/rearranger and some test data from his first run. : http://synack.net/~bbraun/kansas/

The first file he deinterleaved was this one: from7.ROM

https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Firmware/from7.ROM

So if you run the deinterleaver on that file (from7.ROM) and get the same results (the four "kansas_deinterleaved_Un.bin files) Rob did , then it's working right.

Then run the deinterleaver on Captainserial's ROM dump.

If no one volunteers to do that in the next day or two I'll take a run at it. I have a 2009 or 2010 Mac Mini around here somewhere. And a Dell Latitude D430 with SL on it, courtesy of the folks at osxlatitude.com. I'm not quite sure where they are...
 

Attachments

  • TriPEx.ROM.zip
    1.8 MB · Views: 3
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trag

Well-known member
For reference back to the creation of the deinterleaver. This post and the next one after it are where the need for the deinterleaver arose and where Rob quickly supplied the solution. I had a dump of the Kansas ROM. And I had four .bin files phyically read out from Kansas ROMs.

In the first post, I'm trying to figure out how the four chip files, U1, U2, U3 and U4 fit together to form the ROM dump.
In the second post, Rob automates the process of comverting a ROM dump into files that can be written to chips.

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/pex-rom-project.23568/post-269613

And here's a little more explanation of what's stored at the link to Rob's decoder.

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/pex-rom-project.23568/post-269633
 

jimjamyahauk

Well-known member
@jimjamyahauk How were the OF dumps made? Were they dumped with software or are they copies of the actual chips?

Or more to the point, how were the chips in your PEx updated? Did you take them out and have them programmed with code from the Digibarn chips. Or was there some kind of utility that allowed you to update them while they were in the machine?

Ah, I got halfway smart and looked at the provided files and see that there are .bin files. Easy enough to throw those on a Flash chip. But there are three different dumps of the 2.3 firmware. Any idea which one ended up being good/was used?

@Trash80toHP_Mini We may want to pop your chips out of the sockets and make a copy before trying anyupdating experiments. Actually, we can just pop them out and set them aside, and program other chips to put in their place, I guess.

Unfortunately, I don't think those tags shed any light on what version they are. Sigh.

@haplain (or any other PEx owners who are lurking) any version numbers on your chips?
@trag the PLCC chips were removed and read with a chip reader. The same for updating. I think I bought more chips and used them, keeping the originals safe.

From memory the third dump was considered successful one as this was read at the slowest speed. There was something up with the first and second and a byte jumping around in the second.
 

jimjamyahauk

Well-known member
ROM SIMM - just wanted to resurface this post from you @trag about the 3mb Vs 4mb info...

Okay, I put a bunch of PEx extractions into:​
I ran a Hex Compare of the files and all the 3MB files are identical, including the one from the ROM archive which they called a bad dump.​
The 4MB files are identical to each other, and they are identical to the 3MB files through the first 3MB. In other words, the 4MB files have extra stuff at the end.​
The 4MB files are the ROM_grabber... files. Everything else is 3MB.​
So, which do I use?​
If I make a ROM with the 3MB files, the upper 1MB is going to be blank, or unprogrammed. I may as well use the 4MB files. I can't see where loading that upper 1MB with garbage would be worse than leaving it blank.​
 

jimjamyahauk

Well-known member
Hello!

So I have Ubuntu on 20.10 Parallels on my Mac. Learnt some more new stuff today:

Remembered how to use a terminal to start an app
Find dependencies not installed
install 32 bit support to 20.10 Ubuntu
figure out that file permissions not set / change file permissions for execution.
figure out commands for running the thing in terms of input (should have guessed it was just file name). via .c file / what input.

So - can confirm running it on the original rom7ROM.ROM the files produced are identical.

Original Run

dcb9c84bbeaab166bd99d44882c1e9b1 kansas_deinterleaved_U1.bin ca50e54c2619a98e1c6f84cbfb721f34 kansas_deinterleaved_U2.bin 4dec259aa83081b5e7d58ddae516fa36 kansas_deinterleaved_U3.bin 595874aa22e6db1c974ac7d0f4c7f7ea kansas_deinterleaved_U4.bin

Ubunutu 2021 Run
sudo md5sum kansas_deinterleaved_U* dcb9c84bbeaab166bd99d44882c1e9b1 kansas_deinterleaved_U1.bin ca50e54c2619a98e1c6f84cbfb721f34 kansas_deinterleaved_U2.bin 4dec259aa83081b5e7d58ddae516fa36 kansas_deinterleaved_U3.bin 595874aa22e6db1c974ac7d0f4c7f7ea kansas_deinterleaved_U4.bin

Now for the TriPEx.rom

baaf21c30fd10f38164f50d3d270f63a kansas_deinterleaved_U1.bin 8166ccaba2558b1d8d3601c8533a963d kansas_deinterleaved_U2.bin fd8580372fa6105f96194cf592e68a4c kansas_deinterleaved_U3.bin e9efb6cd2480797204c66b198abd9041 kansas_deinterleaved_U4.bin

So can confirm it has produced files successfully. I have renamed them to the following:
baaf21c30fd10f38164f50d3d270f63a TriPEx_deinterleaved_U1.bin 8166ccaba2558b1d8d3601c8533a963d TriPEx_deinterleaved_U2.bin fd8580372fa6105f96194cf592e68a4c TriPEx_deinterleaved_U3.bin e9efb6cd2480797204c66b198abd9041 TriPEx_deinterleaved_U4.bin

Attached as a .zip archive.

Enjoy - back next Tuesday as away for a bit.

James.
 

Attachments

  • TriPEx_deinterleaved_zipfile.zip
    2 MB · Views: 3
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jimjamyahauk

Well-known member
Also, if useful, here are the 3 different ROM dumps (think done 3 times each time to check) done within the OS which all came out at 3MB - EXCEPT Rom-Grabber which was the 4MB one, arranged by utility used:
Save ROM
Rom-grabber
GetRom
 

Attachments

  • GetROM ROMS.zip
    4.5 MB · Views: 1
  • Rom-grabber ROMS.zip
    5.3 MB · Views: 1
  • Save ROM ROMs.zip
    4.5 MB · Views: 1

jimjamyahauk

Well-known member
Right, have now deinterleaved the 4MB Rom-Grabber dump I did of the Digi Barn and here are the results:

3bc332feed391d889b67ea950905bbc1 DigiBarn-PEX-Rom-grabber_deinterleaved_U1.bin 975f90800d9177d59b5eca4f4deb23bd DigiBarn-PEX-Rom-grabber_deinterleaved_U2.bin 0926268dc1c86fbbf556d5269481efb2 DigiBarn-PEX-Rom-grabber_deinterleaved_U3.bin bc2c332c8ef3ba711367306be705e3c7 DigiBarn-PEX-Rom-grabber_deinterleaved_U4.bin

Files attached including the original dump and now the deinterleaved ones.

They are different to the TriPEx ROM output.

I also tried the 3MB one from the other dumpers output but the interleaving makes 4x 700kb files rather than 3x 1024mb ones.
 

Attachments

  • DigiBarn-PEX-Rom-grabber.zip
    3.8 MB · Views: 0
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Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Hat's off and thanks much for all that work. You guys, bbraun and dougg3 et al never cease to amaze me with your technical prowess. Have a great trip.
 

trag

Well-known member
@jimjamyahauk Wow! Thankyou, James! I appreciate the information and the help. I hope you have a great trip.

Rob's original decodes of the Digibarn dumps are here: http://synack.net/~bbraun/pex/

Those should be identical to the last batch that you just posted.

I wish it was easier and faster to ship things to the UK. The last items I shipped a couple of months ago took close to a month to arrive.

I suspect that any one of the three "working" ROMs that jt is testing will work in James's machine, because his machine has been proven to boot properly with the Digibarn ROM DIMM. Testing that question would be helpful.

I will get to work on building a copy of the TriPEx ROM for jt.

@Trash80toHP_Mini Would you mind shipping two of the "working" ROMs I sent you back to me, so I can ship them to James. Details in PM.
 
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jimjamyahauk

Well-known member
Ah cool, great to know both 3mb and 4mb dumps of the Digibarn ones got decoded originally. Obviously, must have been done for you to be able to make the new ones (hadn't thought/realised that 😂).

Shipping to the UK might be interesting. Brexit has mucked up customs times on top of COVID.

Only good past experience is using UPS or FedEx on their faster services and making sure to declare that goods are a gift and nominal value to avoid any silly customs charges.

A question about the TriPEx ROM... Is this another compete ROM that is with one of @haplain's Pex? If so is it the same configuration as the DigiBarn one with hard soldered PLCC chips?

I'm assuming that we know of only 2 complete ROMs DIMMs if that's the case.

Would be interesting to try and compare the contents if and when booted and/or using ResEdit or HexFiend etc on the files.
 

trag

Well-known member
@jimjamyahauk There is yet another PEx owner, forum handle captainserial, and his PEx has a ROM DIMM. It also has 8 PLCC chips soldered on-board.

Link to thread here: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/powerexpress-powermac-9700-prototype.6320/

I'm unclear on whether Hap has one or two ROM DIMMs to go with his two PEx systems.

But there are at least three working ROMs running around. Plus I think there's a post by someone named/called Crutch over on the Digibarn page which implies another working ROM there.

It would be nice if we could collect dumps from all of them for compare/contrast.
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
The guy in Dubai has another one it seems, but it's the manHattan 3-slot version? Dunno the French language pages have confused me no end.
 

trag

Well-known member
Okay, four sets of chips are programmed with the TriPEx DIMM code. Millions of pins of soldering remain to do. One of these days I really should learn how to get a solder stencil, some solder paste and use hot air to do these things.
 
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