Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Yet another ‘just for fun’ P.o.C. – Windows 95 on Gen6.

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Where/when will this madness end? — right here, right now… ;p

This was my final proof of concept attempt at a windows OS on the Archos 5.

I successfully managed to boot Windows 95 using dosbox, and an image file of win95.

Dosbox is a really hefty program on the A5imt (taking up over 70% cpu usage and over 40% ram), so this was a crawling process.  Im sure it would work better with other emulators, but none have yet to be successfully compiled for the A5IMT.  With that said, and keeping in spirit of the original hardware this was meant to run on — the load time is like watching paint dry.

Video: (8 minute long vid, so grab some coffee)

Process:

–Make directories “/dos/95″ on root of unit (mnt_data || rootfs_source)

–Copy image of win95 (in this case W95.IMG) to /dos/95

–Start up dosbox

Run the following commands in dosbox:

  • ver set 8.0 (must trick win95 into thinking ms-dos version is >=7.x.x)
  • mount c /rootfs_source/dos (setting up env.)
  • c:
  • imgmount e c:\95\W95.IMG -t hdd -fs fat (mounting boot image to fs – setting up parameters)
  • boot -l c (booting image off c:)

Then wait….

It will perform scandisk upon booting, let this run.

wait some more….

Ahh…  Success!

Touchscreen is nerfed, and the start menu doesn’t show, so good luck with that.  I haven’t tested out a mouse with it (nor will I) – only a keyboard, and that seems to have basic functionality (asides from the cursor keys not doing what they’re suppose to do), albeit extremely slow.

Have fun, and remember, this is for educational purposes only!!  >=]

~Spz0

Follow-up: New kbd layout for e17 wm (beta2 release)

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

As a follow-up post to the Demo build of Enlightenment 17, I have made a new keyboard layout specifically designed for the Archos 5/7’s screen resolution.  I have also addressed a few troubling issues in regards to the illume kbd itself.

List of improvements:

  • The dimensions are now 800×220 so there is more viewing area above the keyboard.
  • Decreased the size of the keys a touch (not a problem since the interpretive skills of illumes kbd are amazing), and increased the font size on the keys themselves
  • Moved the placement/size of the “popup” keys (when a key is initially pressed –the popup display that grows from the current key pressed) to compensate for the new container size.
  • Moved some bottom row buttons around to center the space-bar for easier use with both thumbs.
  • Removed the “Terminal” kbd layout, since it is no longer compatible with the new 800×220 container.
  • Added a keyboard icon to the top shelf (replacing the “qwerty” text).

Some Screenshots:

custom e17 kbd container (800×220)

e17 topshelf keyboard icon

Since I had to recode the illume bits to make changes to the top shelf and the letter sizing/placement, it is necessary to download the new beta version, as opposed to just releasing a .kbd file.  Props go out to raster from #e for some advice on edje  :)

You can download the image  >>>HERE<<<

**note:  I’ll be updating the parent post with the new beta2 build as well.

Note::

[ If you wish to run this along side your current build, rename image to "illume.img" and make the appropriate entry in "menu.lst" Otherwise just overwrite your "rootfs.img" and your good to go.]

As always, input and suggestions are welcome.

~Cheers

Spz0


An .aos for openAOS – beta

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

CheBuzz put together an unsigned .aos file for gen6/IMT devices.
For those who run an hacked firmware this makes installing an multi-boot environment very easy. Just unpack this zip-file, rename firmware_archos5-7_dualboot.aos tofirmware_archos5-7.aos and move it to your device via USB.

Please note that this file only contains free software and there is nothing unlawful  happening  if a user installs this file.

BOOTNOTE: The file is – obviously – unsigned. That means it will not install if you run stock Archos firmware. Period.

Archos releases SDE for gen7 / Archos5 IT!

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Archos have just released their SDE for gen7 (Archos5 IT). Nice to see that the SDE for their generation 6 products was not a one time show. And now you can run the software of your own choice on more of their devices.

I hope we’ll be able to put support for those devices (Archos5 IT) soon into our project. It should be fairly easy as both the gen6 and the gen7 are based on similar hardware and both SDE versions come with an OpenEmbedded overlay and we also use OpenEmbedded.

HowTo install the bootloader and have openAOS and AVOS

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

I’ve finally found some time to write an HowTo install SDEMultiRoot on your Archos gen6 device.

For now this will be for more advanced users I guess.
We’ll happily accept scripts that automate this though! Also feel free to update the guide if something isn’t clear enough or missing. :-)

If you have further questions or ran into problems contact us on IRC