Savel brain dump in English!

I have already wrote about terminal computer I have. I didn’t managed to start Windows CE on it. Maybe there were some problems in configuration or something. After some time I received more terminal computer and they booted Win CE without any problem. The only problem was in the hardware- blow up capacitors in the power supply. I changed them and everything is fine.

Terminals booted Win CE and I can see standard blue windows desktop. And some requester about connecting to some server. And nothing more. I checked contents of CF card but all information is “crypted” inside few system files. Somewhere there is all settings and passwords stored, but where? The only solution is to “damage” system settings file to force system to “default settings”. I noticed, that if I move (and even place it back) “system.hv” file, windows CE (at least this version I have) will reset to default settings. Or maybe to some semi-default settings. After this file manipulations I see configuration wizard when I boot computer. Then I press “cancel”, go to “Start Menu”, “Settings” or “Control panel”. Find “System” icon, press “reset to factory default”. After this manipulation systems reboot to its “virgin” state. Now I can configure system as I want.

I found WinCE 4.2 and 5.0 (or maybe all CF card are already upgraded to version 5). This version of Windows CE have installed Internet Explorer 6.0 without Baltic encoding. Unicode is installed and new web pages with unicode charset (like this weblog) are displayed with proper symbols. But all older Lithuanian web pages with Baltic codeset displayed with mixed symbols.

This is nice and slow fanless internet computer. There are some other software in install like remote desktop clients, file viewers and mail software.

While playing with CF cards and files inside it is important not to touch BLDR file in root drawer.

Contents of my CD card:

2003.04.15  18:38            16.384 BLDR
2007.12.06  20:04    dir          BMP
2007.12.06  20:04    dir          Documents and Settings
2020.01.28  04:38            67.739 EBOOT.BIN
2005.08.20  16:18        15.484.163 NK.BIN
2005.08.20  16:15           308.316 SPLASH.BIN

Contents of Documents and Settings:

2007.12.06  20:04    DIR          default
2001.05.31  12:24                52 default.mky
2001.05.31  12:41           131.072 system.hv
2004.09.08  09:45                52 System.mky

Contents of default:

2001.05.31  12:41           131.072 user.hv

BLDR is the “second” boot loader. First one is in the first sectors of the disk. Splash.bin is startup (boot) screen image. It is uncompressed raw image. eboot.bin- unknown. nk.bin- is the image of windows ce operating system.

From time to time I am doing house clear-up. If I didn’t this, the house will be full of various electronic stuff. Some of the items maybe sold in eBay or local garage-sale, but some items must be thrown away.

Some stuff appears in the house in very simple way- I need some small part on the PCB, so I pick up whole PCB. And the rest of the board is left in the shelf- maybe I’ll use other components in the future. But not now IS THE TIME and everything must go away.

In the picture there is green PCB with big BGA chip, near two gamepad joysticks. This PCB was picked up only for FM75 chip- tiny element with eight pins. I also removed some linear regulators from this PCB: 1.8V and 3.3V. They were used for FPGA breadboard. All other chips like big LG cpu, 28LV320AT flash, LV logic chips, LEDs, 100MHz oscillator and lots of SMD components are trash.

Here is bigger picture of the trash to exam.

Here is the list of the trash: Logitech web cam (old one, slow, low res and low sensitivity. Replaced with new no-name), VFD screen with drivers from DVD, TI DSP board, few gamepads (I removed radio modules), CB radio with broken display panel, computer mainboard, old IBM notebook (I removed only few chip from it), some optical mouses (I was searching for specific chips), one wireless mouse, bunch of small motors (gamepad vibrators), some unidentified PCB, some old DIMM and SIMM modules, old HP 5300 scanner (replaced with new-old HP6300 with better lamps). This is my fourth scanner- and only first one (HP5p) was bought in the shop. All others were picked from the trash. These old scanners are much better than new cheap ones .

All this stuff is found in my room. And if we’ll look in to the garage…