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With PowerPC, Windows CE and the WiiN-Pad Slate, Everyone's a WiiN-Er | |
winocm wrote 8 hours 21 min ago: | |
32-bit PowerPC implementations do support little endian mode, but not | |
from power-on reset. You can have a little stub handler that basically | |
does the switch to LE by setting MSR.{LE,ILE} via srr1 and then | |
performing a RFI after loading the return address into srr0. | |
It is notoriously difficult to write bi-endian code though. I really | |
wish there were assembly directives to change the word swapping per | |
instruction instead of doing it manually, for my own sanity. | |
I think the 970 supports this too, but itâs a bit weirder with the | |
MSR.HV settings. | |
Note that little endian mode on PPC affects all memory accesses, | |
including real mode when MSR.ILE is set. | |
crest wrote 3 hours 29 min ago: | |
Given that PowerPC supports indexed load/store instructions with | |
reversed endianness it's doesn't cost extra cycles or code size to | |
access little-endian peripherals. The real problem is how fragile | |
drivers are these days. | |
sedatk wrote 22 hours 47 min ago: | |
Wow, the author's gone above and beyond. Pages and pages of useful | |
information, and this statement is just in the middle of a sentence: | |
"turn this into a phony ELF binary" | |
That would alone take me days to tackle (convert a PowerPC PE into a | |
PowerPC ELF). He mentions it like it's similar to copying a line on a | |
text editor. | |
Totally amazed at the level of detail and amount of work went into this | |
article. Thanks! | |
classichasclass wrote 22 hours 29 min ago: | |
(author) Thank you! But this was actually not very difficult. The PE | |
format is well-documented, so I just extracted the code segment | |
addresses, then generated an ELF by emitting code like this with a | |
hacky Perl script: | |
.globl main | |
main: | |
trap | |
.byte 0xfc | |
.byte 0xff | |
... | |
etc. Assemble, run that in gdb, it traps immediately, and just | |
disassemble from PC. | |
dfox wrote 23 hours 57 min ago: | |
It is somehow weird to see MPC821 in this kind of device. The point of | |
(Power)QUICC line is that the Communications Processor is some kind of | |
RISC/VLIW core, that offloads various communications tasks and has | |
firmware support for various serial telco protocols. I would not be too | |
surprised if MPC821 and MPC860 are in fact the same hardware only with | |
different firmware that somehow bitbangs the LCD interface by (ab)using | |
the SCC channels (original m68k QUICC datasheet mentions that there is | |
a way to make one of the channels behave like Centronics parallel | |
port). | |
In any case PowerQUICC with LCD interface is a device that is quite | |
obviously meant for something like dektop phone with large LCD, not for | |
tablets. | |
Quite large usage of PowerQUICC were Cisco 17xx/26xx series routers | |
(with 16xx using m68k QUICC) that were used by many telcos in early | |
2000's as "SHDSL modems". If you squint enough the m68k QUICC is an | |
entire Cisco 2500 on a single chip (with the added benefit that the | |
QUICC SCC can more or less do scatter gather DMA directly into IOS's | |
particle buffer datastructure, which IIRC was not the case with the | |
Z8530-derived USARTs in 2500). | |
Aloha wrote 22 hours 50 min ago: | |
We're still shipping hardware with PowerQUICC stuff in it, its used | |
in a TDM/IP intelligent channel bank. | |
kjs3 wrote 15 hours 59 min ago: | |
Where are people still using TDM channel banks? As someone who | |
spent far too much time with TDM networks (mostly replacing them) | |
in the late 80s, genuinely curious. | |
Aloha wrote 13 hours 5 min ago: | |
It's TDM internally, but converts to IP at the edge of the | |
device. | |
It can still operate over TDM for legacy, but yeah, thats the | |
answer. | |
IAmLiterallyAB wrote 16 hours 5 min ago: | |
NXP still sells those? Wow, e500 will never die huh | |
mlhpdx wrote 1 day ago: | |
Wow. Maybe if WinCE had this kind of thorough documentation back then | |
it would have done better. Excellent article and history lesson. | |
classichasclass wrote 1 day ago: | |
(author) Hey, thanks! | |
sumtechguy wrote 20 hours 57 min ago: | |
WinCE was an interesting beast. The ones we made were MIPS (picked | |
over an ARM system). Running a wildly patched 2.12. Also your | |
PCMCIA issues? Trust nothing. It could be anything. But my guess | |
is it is the driver, as getting that type of flash card to work | |
consistently and correctly takes a steady hand. Your flash could | |
also be slightly corrupt. We had almost that exact same chipset | |
and found it would randomly stop taking commands after awhile and | |
the flash leveling would cause writes to time out leaving half | |
written pages. You also discovered Visual C++ for wince has a lot | |
of interesting bugs. I think it got so bad we were about to start | |
breaking each method into one cpp file as things could 'smear' | |
between methods before the whole thing went EoL. There are newer | |
versions of the compiler that may help some (maybe you already have | |
it). If you got into the right program (or the right company) you | |
could get the ODM build set. Which would compile the whole OS | |
(based on a very bespoke version of visual studio 6 and a crazy | |
mixture of using mklink and crazy batch files). But it would also | |
let you debug the drivers. As for my 'trust nothing' I mean it. | |
The API calls that should 'just work' may randomly crash or leak. | |
Good luck! | |
classichasclass wrote 20 hours 45 min ago: | |
Wow, I had no idea it was that iffy under the hood. I might do | |
more messing with the flash if it gets goofier. Yes, the issues | |
with VC++ got annoying in a hurry. | |
sumtechguy wrote 20 hours 10 min ago: | |
Had one bug where we had a stray tab between methods. Would | |
cause it to crash out the compiler. Putting us squarely in the | |
no tabs camp. | |
JoeAltmaier wrote 20 hours 53 min ago: | |
We had the ODM. Had to rewrite critical pieces of it to make it | |
work at all. The timer service had races - we fixed it and | |
offered the fixes back, but arrogant Microsoft wouldn't take | |
them, they were smarter than us and didn't need our help. So we | |
had to repatch every release as they shipped the same broken code | |
again and again. | |
Had to rewrite the DHCP code, theirs was one run-on procedure | |
written by some intern. Didn't handle half the cases, took | |
forever to conclude if it ever did at all. We needed to roam | |
across subnets on the order of 100's of ms. Theirs took seconds | |
to maybe complete. Junk. They of course rejected that too. | |
Best if WinCE were buried and forgotten? | |
sumtechguy wrote 20 hours 11 min ago: | |
I think MS didnt really 'own' the code. There was another | |
company (b squared?) that owned large portions of it. We had | |
the same DHCP issue. Also fixed many bugs in the ATL code | |
taking up precious flash space for our bespoke version as we | |
were 2 vendors removed from getting to talk directly to MS. | |
> Best if WinCE were buried and forgotten? | |
I am going to say yes. If someone ever finds one of the ones I | |
worked on, my advice is to set it on fire then once it is done | |
smoldering bin the thing and just get something better. | |
garaetjjte wrote 19 hours 22 min ago: | |
From my experience (though it was with CE 7) I got the | |
impression that core kernel code is decent, but the rest of | |
stack is haphazard collection of barely working hacks. APIs | |
look like their NT equivalents, but not really, often missing | |
crucial functionality. Documentation is often wrong or | |
outdated, especially in BSP area, where it frequently mixes | |
up how OAL interacts with the kernel with details of the | |
optional PQOAL library. Same thing with driver documentation, | |
where it confuses driver interface with describing MDD | |
libraries. Finer semantics of the interfaces are mostly | |
guesswork. Multiple barely documented touch device stacked on | |
top of each other, with various ways of loading the driver | |
and sending events to GWES. And the build system... that | |
thing is just hideous. | |
JoeAltmaier wrote 18 hours 50 min ago: | |
If I remember right, Bill set several teams to writing an | |
os for devices. The one that finished first, shipped. The | |
'winners' weren't even OS programmers. Thus, the naïve | |
implementations of so many critical OS functions (drivers, | |
timers, interrupt handling, flash) | |
WillAdams wrote 1 day ago: | |
As a person who really wanted the Sharp Mobilon TriPad PV-6000, this | |
sort of thing makes me sad for what might have been. | |
I almost returned my Samsung Galaxy Book 12 to Best Buy back when the | |
stylus was crippled to scrolling by Fall Creator's Update --- even now, | |
I constantly have to toggle its compatibility state in Windows 11 to | |
use it with different programs. | |
That said, my next tech purchase is a Raspberry Pi 5 and a Wacom One 13 | |
w/ Touch --- hopefully it will work as well as the first gen. unit did | |
w/ an rPi 4 and I can get off this software treadmill and just focus on | |
using the machine as opposed to re-learning whatever UI update MS is | |
inflicting this quarter. | |
fock wrote 1 day ago: | |
hmmm, Surface works fine with Linux here, so that might be a sleeker | |
alternative. | |
tcmart14 wrote 1 day ago: | |
I really wish my wife wouldn't have given her mom the surface I | |
bought for her. I was really curious how well Linux would work on | |
it while she had it for school. | |
WillAdams wrote 1 day ago: | |
Yes, for folks who can stand NTrig, that works --- Wacom EMR or | |
bust here. | |
ukuina wrote 17 hours 45 min ago: | |
Why would you prefer one over the other? | |
WillAdams wrote 12 hours 25 min ago: | |
Hover distance is the big thing for me, and I mislike jitter | |
when drawing slowly in NTrig, and I need more batteries to | |
charge/manage like I need a hole in my head. | |
I have: | |
- Galaxy Note 10+ | |
- Kindle Scribe | |
- Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 | |
- Wacom One | |
plus two spare styluses in my EDC bag, two more spares at the | |
coffee table in the living room, and 3 more in a box on a shelf | |
--- that they don't have batteries/capacitors and "just work" | |
when I need them is an aspect of my life which I rely on. | |
nubinetwork wrote 1 day ago: | |
The shape of that battery looks like it's got a pair of 18650s in them. | |
> This machine came from the Atlanta, Georgia area (snip), and certain | |
identifiers left on it trace it back to Patient Care Technologies, a | |
home-care, hospice and telehealth software provider. It's not clear if | |
this machine was actually in the field or only used internally for | |
testing. PtCT was bought by Meditech in 2007. | |
I'm sort of not surprised, the ancient winCE UI is about as ancient as | |
meditech's UI. | |
kotaKat wrote 16 hours 18 min ago: | |
Data General really gave it away. I was really thinking this thing | |
was gonna be heavily a MEDITECH tie-in. DG was basically the platform | |
MT was running on back in the day (before OSAL happened). | |
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