Seven To netBook with std HW? - Wacky Idea

[spegru]

I thought I'd start a new thread as existing similar ones are now very long - and because this will be long winded and techie! :eek:

Diem is going to cross link to the netBook board somehow

spegru

[spegru]

I got my new Netbook personality module from expansys and had it fitted and booted in a trice. Howewer I then got to looking at.

a) a file I downloaded from Psion ages ago for the Series 7 update from v751 to v756
b) the chips on the S7 module, vs. the netBook module

First the old v756 update. This is a 3 file zip, containing.

i) readme.txt
ii) update.exe
iii) Rom_4MB.img

Here is most of the readme

1. Ensure that you have backed up all your data
2. Copy the files Rom_4mb.img and Update.exe to the root of C:\ on your Series 7 using PsiWin or Compact Flash.
3. Ensure that the Series 7 is powered up from the mains using the DC Jack
4. Run Update.exe, by double tapping it, to install the patch to your Series 7
5. You will be prompted with the question " Have you backed up your data?" If you have done so, tap OK to continue
6. You will then be prompted to start the process. Tap OK to continue
7. The Series 7 screen will become black and you will see an indication of the upgrading occuring
8. Upon completion, a Green screen with PASS should be observed
9. You then need to remove the DC jack, the main battery and the backup lithium battery. Then re-insert the main battery to re-boot your Series 7.
10. Your unit should now be updated to Build version 756

Does this not sound pretty similar to the procedure for updating the netBook OS ? except for use of C drive and this update.exe file?

The very existance of this update proves that the S7 std ROM is in fact flash - so there are surely very few differences between S7 & netBook


Now for the Chips on the personality module. This is important, as the S7 ROM needs to be big enough for the netBook OS for the above idea to work.

So, the oldish S7 has 6 off Sharp
'LH28F160S3HT-L10A' which according to the Sharp website are indeed Flash at 16M each - (but 6 off?) There is also a '74VHC138' -
which seems to be a CMOS 3-to-8 decoder/demultiplexer from Fairchild. I can't think what it's for -
maybe a 6 to one combiner??

The (new) nB module uses two Samsung 'K4E641610-TL50' - for which the only info I can find
appears to be korean, but I think I can make out a reference to 32Mb - and one of the same Sharp
type (16M). There 's no decoder thing.

So the capacity seems to be
S7 - 96Mb.
and
nB 80Mb.

Now I get confused between bits and bytes, and in any case it all has to be addressable from the motherboard - Maybe someone can help out with the 'real' size. I note that the Z (rom) drive on the netBook v158 is 13.9M and the one on the oldish S7 v756 is 9.67M

So, it seems to me that the two Modules may be essentially the same except for the difference manufacture date and hence Psion's chip choice. It would be interesting to discover the chips used on an Old (c1999-2000) netBook module or a recent S7.

So why is any of this important?

Because it may well be possible to use the S7 update.exe file to load netBook OS into a standard S7.... and if the supply of netBook modules is limited.....
even if not, then we might as well save £64+p&p

rgds spegru

Ps as I said, long and techie - and i havn't finished yet either!

[spegru]

Further points/ questions Re 5MX

a) the 5MX Z drive is 8.19M. I wonder if that's flash too?!?...... I note from Rueyloon's site http://www.portal-pda.com/main.php3 that even early Revos use flash.
b) I don't know how these .img files that the OS lives in are constructed or how they are loaded into the Z drive. But if it were possible to mix n match the components, then it might be possible to do some interesting things like (decent) imap4 mail for the 5mx, irDA LAN connectivity - and maybe even ethernet via the card adaptor

Can anyone help explain these .img files?

spegru

[spegru]

Aonther reason to be interested in this stuff is that quite a few of us (I surmise) have got the 16Mb Series 7 Dimm module. Does anyone know WHY the netbook can't recognise 16Mb - only 32?

I think extra RAM memory is a good thing vs compact flash because I observe that progs installed on RAM run faster - due to access time I assume

spegru

PS - have emailed D&G upgrades http://www.pda-upgrade.20m.com/ to ask whether they can convert a 16M into a 32 M. Will report back.

[fladda]

From photos on the 'net, it appears that the Series-7 16Mbyte RAM board is the same raw PWB as the Netbook operating system card. Except that the Series-7 16Mbyte RAM board does not contain the Netbook boot loader ROM chip (and other ICs??).

I suspect that both the right-hand and the left-hand expansion slots might share the same pinout ?? Therefore fitting the Series-7 16Mbyte board in a Netbook will probably put this RAM in 'conflict' with the 16Mbytes of RAM on the Netbook operating system card. i.e. both cards will have the RAM addresses in the same 16Mbyte range. Also it is reported that the Netbook operating system will only recognise RAM in 32Mbyte chunks.

You could probably use the series-7 16Mbyte RAM card as a Netbook operating system card IF you could find some way of booting up the series-7 in the first place. Would need to perform the actions of the boot loader ROM and also copy the os.img file to RAM after a cold restart.

However, now that Psion appear to have made the Netbook operating system cards availabe at a very reasonable price, I suggest that trying to otherwise modify a Series-7 is simply not worth the risk of the effort. Support Psion and purchase the official upgrade.

Ralph

[diem]

Got me sums wrong when we were talking earlier - and it now makes sense that the C drive (16 MBytes) is on the motherboard.

S7 module

16Mbits x 6 chips = 96Mbits
96Mb / 8 bits = 12MBytes

With 16MByte on the mother board as the C drive


nB module
My chips are Samsung K4E6416120-TL60. I think they are 64 Mbits each (two of them), so:

64Mbits x 2 chips = 128Mbits
128 Mb / 8 bits = 16MBytes

But here it breaks down a little, 'cos the nB has a 32MB C drive :confused:

We know that the motherboards are identical, so there's no more RAM there. There's that one Sharp chip on the module, but I think that contains the bootstrap code, and in any case it isn't enough to supply another 16MBytes by itself..

I don't wanna take the module out of mine just to see what chips are on the underside - but since my chips are so similar to yours and if your module is single-sided too, then it would be illogical for there to be more RAM there..


So, um, not totally sure, but I think the S7 module doesn't contain enough 'OS RAM' for the 14MB latest netBook OS.

Go for it if you like, maybe the update.exe has safeguards built into its code to check the available size before it writes, but I think at best it won't update it, and at worst it won't boot at all :(

If u don' care 'cos u gotta netBook now ;) then go for it my son :D :D

[wanman]

Hi Fladda,

I don't think these upgrade ROMS come from Psion. If they had then I would definitely agree to support them (even though they have chosen not to support us private users), but the assurances given by Expansys about these cards coming from Psion may be false.

I have spoken to several people at Psion (both tech support £1 a min and customer services) and neither knew anything about this upgrade board. From other posts on this site, even Psion Teklogix are in the dark about this product. If I had to put money on it, I think these are either clone boards or they come from the original supplier of Psion.

Anyone else have any clues ?

Si

[spegru]

Just done some more investigation.
I have discovered that the S7 DIMM module is in fact almost identical to the netBook personality module. It has the same PCB, contains two v.v.similar Samsung chips K4E641612C-TL60 and is missing the Sharp Flash chip and a couple of resistors & capacitors - spaces for which are provided.

This raises the possibility of converting into an S7 DIMM into a netBook personality module

Now, can someone have a look at a the chips on a netBook 32M DIMM please??

rgds

spegru

PS. I can't help suspecting that the supply of the netbook modules will be limited. I bet they come from Psion's original supplier getting rid of inventory (exact same PCB). It doesn't mean they'll make any more though

[spegru]

Considering the S7 DIMM is RAM it seems and the virtually identical Chip numbers on the NB module it seems highly likely that the two Sumsung chips on the NB module are in fact also RAM. So I'm now even more confused as to the real capacity of the NB personality module.

Also, if there is RAM on the NB module, then there is probably some bearing on the use of the S7 DIMM

There doesn't seem to be any RAM on the (oldish) S7 module so there must be some on the motherboard

Ideas ayone?

rgds

spegru (off to look at Ruey Loon's site again http://www.portal-pda.com/main.php3 )

[spegru]

I note that if you switch on the nB for the first time without a bootable flash, it says something alon the lines of 'insert bootable cf or run Rominst'

Now what is this 'Rominst' thing. Since I don't have a real nB I havn't got the CD. I'm guessing here - but is it an app you put in the C drive to install from cf (as opposed to booting directly from cf)? If so then it could be the same as the S7 Update.exe thingy. I guess an app program doesn't care what it's own file name is.


rgds

spegru

PS. I'd be really really interested in chippy info on the older nB module and newer S7 module. Without removing it, you can still see how many chips and (depending on labels) what they are just by opening the lid :)

[spegru]

Ok, my visit to RueyLoon's site http://www.portal-pda.com/main.php3 tells me that there are 16Mb RAM on the nB Motherboard and 16 on the personality module - making 32Mb in all.

He seems to think that the apps are loaded into RAM from the ROM. (I can't think why that should be. Faster access times?? But if the S7 apps are on flash then why not the nB?) :confused:

Also he says that once the apps are loaded there is only a usable 16M-ish of nB RAM.

netBook users - how big are your C Drives?

[wanman]

Hi Spegru,

Had a look at my 7book and the z drive shows a size of 14mb (ROM) with the c: drive set to 15mb (RAM). Not sure where the missing 3mb has gone?

Si

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by spegru
netBook users - how big are your C Drives?
I had just over 14Mb immediately after installing the OS update last week.

Julie

[diem]

The nB RAM upgrade has four of the 64Mb Samsung ships on it. We know this is 32MB, so the two on the nB pers. module must be 16MB. Since the nB C drive is 16MB(ish), then all the number now add up (ref. my previous post).

The upshot is that the nB OS will not fit onto a S7 pers. module. Sorry folks...

[diem]

'rominst' is a shonky Windows (DOS?) app that can be used to install the OS via the serial cable.

[spegru]

Soooo. We seems to have established with some help several quarters, including Diem, NetBookBabe, WanMan, Fladda and Thomas at Psionwelt (it seems that the same nB-style procedure is also used on the 5MX pro) that the nB personality is partly flash and partly RAM. The non-volatile flash part tells the nB to boot from CF - which then loads the OS into RAM - using up most if not all of the RAM on the Personality module.
OTOH the S7 is all flash and thus is all non-volatile so that you never need to boot from CF.
The C drive RAM is 16M on the motherboard - on both machines

However you can also re-load the flash on the S7 using the update.exe program. So the theory would be that you could load the nB OS into flash - but unfortunately the size of the S7 flash bank is too small at 12M :( . Siiiiigh!

So the only way to improve the S7 without new hardware would be to reduce the size of the OS to (I suspect) 10M max because that would be 2M less than the total chip capacity (and matches the S7 Z drive size of 9.67M) - in the same way as the apparent nB max OS size is 14M - 2M less than the observed chip max of 16M.

If it were possible to reduce the size of the OS (by putting some Apps on C drive RAM), it would enable S7s to be updated without new HW, and also avoid the necessity of booting from CF. Of course you could do without some of the nB apps - like nFTP (which can be loaded seperately) and the Games perhaps? But of course that means understanding how to build these .img files for the OS. I'm sure someone out there knows how....

rgds to all

spegru

PS. I wonder if the OS being on RAM makes the nB run faster due to quicker access times - it is very noticable.

[fladda]

Yes the Netbook runs faster because the operating system is in RAM whereas the Series-7 operating system is in ROM. Generally RAM is faster than ROM.

Series-7 ROM is -L10 on my daughtrecard. This means 100nSec access cycle time. IIRC the Netbook DRAM is around -L6 which means 60nSec access time.

Roger Wilson was one of the geniuses that designed the original ARM processor. In order to squeeze extra performance, the ARM processor has utilised fast-page DRAM from day one. Fast page DRAM allows sequential memory addresses to be read at half the speed of random access IIRC. If the StrongARM is reading code from the operating system or from a programme, it usually reads the RAM sequentially. You only get fast page mode access from certain types of DRAMs and not from ROM AFAIK.

Faster speed of the RAM over ROM and the use of fast page mode on the RAM allows the Netbook to load instructions faster.
However, the StrongARM uses an instruction cache, so there should be nothing to stop the Series-7 running at 191MHz, but still use slower ROM rather than RAM ? However such a series-7 would still run slower than a Netbook due to the differenence in RAM speed vs. ROM speed.

Ralph

[wanman]

and different processor speed. This does make a major difference as apps with graphics or large screen outputs do run alot faster at NB speeds than 7 speeds (example Money)

Si

[diem]

According to my contacts, .img files are built using Perl scripts to join together binaries - well and truly hardcore! I understand it to be something of a black art - there are no GUI tools 'cos these just wouldn't do nearly an efficient enough job.

In any case, we'd need to get hold of the binaries of all the apps and OS components, and need to understand the dependencies. None of this is an insurmountable task, but it sure ain't a stroll in the park either!