Floppy Disk attack on Zombie BIOS...

You know those sureal moments when something from the past comes back to life... wanders around and tries to eat your brain? 

I have had two of those in the past couple of days.  One was people from the past contacting me and having mid-life crisies... the other was a computer needing a floppy disk to fix a corrupt bios.

Talk about a blast from the past.  Even finding a functioning USB floppy drive is hard enough... then I had to scrounge for a floppy disk in working order.

But so far to no avail.  The machine is still in a loop of death ( it was working... ok-ish before I tried to flash the bios... but had obvious problems) So I am considering either canabalising it for parts or just dropping it down the stairs a couple of times....

I am still blown away that a floppy drive is the manufacturers fallback position... even for a machine that was never supplied with one.  It does make sense as BIOS basic features were carved in stone a few decades ago....

Whoa!....

Later.

Anyway, this machine looks like its bricked.

It powers up, with a normal HP boot screen... but the F9,F10 & F12 options do not work.  Then it quickly flicks to a black screen with the message:

"Your BIOS failed to complete update..... blah blah"  again with the F10 option mentioned at the bottom.  Again F10 does not work.

Then after a couple of seconds it reboots. Rince - repeat.

I have read my way across the net and tried all the recomended BIOS recovery procedures involving USB sticks, old bios images, win+b button combinations and have not found anything that has worked..(obviously)

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&prodSeriesId=3356620&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=3356620&objectID=c02693833

 It's interesting that when I run a BIOS recovery using the USB Floppy, you can hear it seek and start to read... but it still reboots on the same schedule. This suggests that the USB drivers, FAT driver and the disk driver are getting loaded... but something choaks or is corrupt and it reboots.

To me it sounds like the boot region of the bios has been corrupted and its just not able to set up enough of a rudimentary system to be able to reload the new BIOS image from the disk.  Keep in mind that the BIOS image that is supplied for flashing, is not the "whole" of the code in the BIOS eprom.  There are some other regions that are not always replaced when you "flash" the bios.  If these get corrupted...well the ability to repair them gets increasingly low-level.

From reading between the lines and looking at the discussion on the MyDigitalLife boards about BIOS mods... I think there is no reasonable way to replace this code without desoldering the BIOS chip and reloading it with a working image dumped from another machine (Ignoring the serial number issue... which can be managed)

As this sounds like fun.... I have thought about it... but realistically... I just don't have the time.  I have about 8-10 laptops of the same model and some are in worse shape than this one... but boot happy... so I think its canabal time. 

Yet another hardware hacking site

http://dangerousprototypes.com/

Arduino + Matlab via Simulink

http://www.mathworks.com/academia/arduino-software/?nocookie=true

Learn something new every day.  This is the first time I have poked around simulink and it looks interesting.  Totally inaccessable due to the price... but interesting none the less.  The price of "research" IO boards and software is just a joke.  Labview is in the same category, great gear and adequate software but totally inaccessable due to the price. 

I honestly think Arduino and similar gear are going to completely eat this market segment.  When you can get a data aquisition device up and running for a few hundred on arduino with some modules and bits or spend a couple of thousand just to get a box for Labview or Simulink... its not really reasonable. 

I respect where they are comming from and the cost to develop and support their monolythic systems... but I still feel that as a business model... its had its day. 
These kind of systems are just not feasible when compared with the capacity and richness of an open model. 

Small purpose built open systems that interact via open standards are much simpler and less bug prone than trying to deal with the massive libraries and learning curves of what are archaic monsters with decades of cruft.

I unearthed an old aparatus in the back of a lab the other day that's a marvel of electro mechanical engineering. It interfaces with a 486 dx2 66 running some unix variant via some multi channel IO system from before I was born.  The time and energy that went into making it is just wonderful.  (Its a skinner box system for pidgeons BTW)
I really respect that its about 50KG of gear that probably cost someone a few thousand to have custom made, 15 years ago but the same functionality can be had from an arduino for about $50 today. 

I just cannot justify matlab or labview for most projects.  They're not even contenders.  The only reason matlab is still around is due to support some aging infrastructure ( code for older academic staff...) that cannot be updated.

Life is change....

Article on the Netduino

http://10rem.net/blog/2012/04/07/first-experiences-with-the-new-netduino-go-and-how-it-relates-to-net-gadgeteer

Now for an article on netduino and the gadgeteer modules.  Some useful information but more for the plug and play minded folk.  There is reference to an IO shield that will interface all this stuff with the arduino.

Article on basic arduino programming

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/learning-program-arduino#

This is brief but nice article on some basic arduino programming.

MFD to Scanner hacking

http://entropia.kapsi.fi/blog/2012/04/the-transformation-of-samsung-scx-4200/

Nice recycling of a scanner from a multi-function device.

hardware chart

http://sprki.com/computer-hardware-chart.html

Arduino links to follow up on

http://vimeo.com/18539129

http://www.eeweb.com/blog/robert_berger/arduino-for-mere-m0rtals-part-1

Basic Game Hardware Project

http://pragprog.com/magazines/2011-08/make-your-own-video-game-system

Hacking video games with Arduino... maybe I can fix that N64....

Documentation and Hardware Fixing

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/04/fixing-the-planet-ifixit-wants-repair-manual-for-everything.ars


http://www.dozuki.com/Sales/Guidebook

Mostly about IFixit.com

Arduino video out to TV

http://pragprog.com/magazines/2011-08/make-your-own-video-game-system

This looks like a fun project for the weekend. I even have a tiny 12v CRT tv that I picked up on the side of the road looking for a project to be part of.... hmmm might make a nice little retro robot out of it all... Just about the right size to fit into a little perspex fish tank.... thinking....

Mechatronics, Programming and Genetics. Fun in the home lab....

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028181.700-evolution-machine-genetic-engineering-on-fast-forward.html?full=true


What the kids will be getting up to in a few years.....

Virtual Reality Peripheral Network

http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/vrpn/index.html

Need to have a look at this for interfacing the Phasespace system with other gear.

Microsoft Surface

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/whatissurface.aspx

This is an interesting looking bit of gear for motion planning experiments.  Need to get one and have a play with it.

Kinect Hacking links

http://channel9.msdn.com/series/KinectSDKQuickstarts

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/microsoft-releases-kinect-windows-sdk


http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/mf_kinect/all/1

http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2011/06/16/official-kinect-developer-kit-now-available-for-download.aspx

Reversing a firmware image

http://www.devttys0.com/2011/05/reverse-engineering-firmware-linksys-wag120n/

This is a nice post on reversing a firmware image.  Well described.

Yet another reason to go android

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/05/why-google-choosing-arduino-matters-and-the-end-of-made-for-ipod-tm.html

Thinking.....

Drool... how much do I want one?

http://singularityhub.com/2010/04/05/5-axis-robot-carves-metal-like-butter-video/

Hardware Vision for cheap price

http://chipsight.com/easy-eye-silabs-camera/

Interesting information on low cost hardware vision system.  The comments are especially valuable.

Pandora game console

http://www.openpandora.org/index.php

Open game console... its funny that you don't even know you need something until you see it.  The gap in your life is so clearly defined by the solution presented before you. 

All the things wrong with the DS and the PSP have just gone away... how many times a week do you get to say that?