17 Jan
2003
17 Jan
'03
2:29 p.m.
Antonio Carlini <arcarlini(a)iee.org> wrote:
The VIC can
be disabled by "patching" the NVAX in some dynamic way (presumably
non-reversibly or at least only reversible in an obscure way).
I assume the NVAX microcode was patched via its PCS facility by the boot
firmware, not by making a different NVAX die with different microcode I hope,
right? If so the abomination is to be reversed by reflashing the boot ROM with
non-hobbled firmware (stolen from a friend with a non-hobbled machine). They
had flash ROMs like all other NVAXen, right?
MS
17 Jan
17 Jan
10:08 p.m.
I assume the NVAX microcode was patched via its PCS
facility
by the boot firmware, not by making a different NVAX die with
different microcode I hope, right? If so the abomination is
I assume so too.
to be reversed by reflashing the boot ROM with
non-hobbled
firmware (stolen from a friend with a non-hobbled machine).
They had flash ROMs like all other NVAXen, right?
I doubt that non-hobbled firmware exists. I doubt you
could just use the UV3100-96 firmware upgrade on a
UV3100-85 and have it work. In fact, I guess the firmware
is the same but it looks at the machine's hardware (e.g.
size and config of backup cache or something like that)
to determine what it is running on, and disables the VIC
if it thinks the machine is a UV3100-85.
The easiest thing to do would be to try reenabling the VIC.
If that is not enough, you would have to find the bit of code
that disables the VIC and NOP it out. I doubt that the code
was protected too much: it would have been way beyond most
customers' ability to alter it.
Antonio
--
---------------
Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org
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