On Wed, 2 Aug 2023, down in the bunny hole wrote: > some of these boards are broken, but I think/hope I can fix their > hardware problems > - clean up, remove dust > - remove sand that have accumulated from having exposed to the elements > - replace capacitors > - replace LDOs > - rebuild damaged tracks due to battery acid leaking > - reprogram empty UV-PROM due to long exposition to the sunlight > without any protective label > - ... Good luck with bringing these pieces back to life. Do you have any specific previous experience that tells you to replace LDOs? > The real problem is that I have no documentation and no source of the > firmware. > > Do you happen to know someone who worked with those boards? and can > share their UserManual, doc and firmware source? I already gave you pointers to documentation on the MIPS/NetBSD mailing list. I believe that's about what used to exist in public, but I think it's fairly good, down to board schematics, isn't it? As to firmware sources for Atlas here's the most recent YAMON release: <https://web.archive.org/web/20140703055905if_/http://www.imgtec.com/tools/mips-tools/downloads/yamon/yamon-src-02.22.tar.gz>. I suggest that you try the binary image first with one of your boards: <https://web.archive.org/web/20140703055848if_/http://www.imgtec.com/tools/mips-tools/downloads/yamon/yamon-bin-02.22.zip> just to make sure you've got your process right, especially as rebuilding the sources with contemporary tools can be tricky (as can be building old tools); note that Atlas wasn't an actively supported board at that point anymore, but relevant code wasn't removed from YAMON either, so it may or may not work with your hardware depending on the constellation of bugs implemented. A version of PMON for the Algorithmics boards seems to be available here: <https://web.archive.org/web/20010615095509if_/http://www.algor-uk.com:80/ftp/pub/software/pmon/pmonsrc-current.tar.gz>. I don't know how to use it. Also sadly none of the Linux source images with board-specific modifications in the directory nearby seem to have been archived, sigh. I find it regrettable that this stuff has never been upstreamed or we could still have it. Those were very fine boards. I suggest that you do further archive.org archaeology yourself, I just did the parts you may not have been able to figure out without prior knowledge. > The MIPS Atlas comes with Philips SAA9730, a ~20 old bit combined > multimedia and peripheral controller used in thin clients, Internet > access terminals, and diskless workstations, that implements > - the VGA interface and Video RAM > - two USB interfaces > - PS/2 Keyboard and PS2 Mouse interface > - I2C interface to serial EEPROM > - Serial Debug RS232 Interface > - Ethernet interface > > As far as I can see from feedback in Linux, this chip was/is known to > be weird, but I don't find details: has anyone ever worked on it? If > so, are there any "notes" about its weird behavior? I suggest you check out old Linux kernel sources from before code for Atlas has been removed. I'm fairly sure there used to be what you are after recorded there, and in any case it's your best bet. I may be the only person still around who touched that stuff. > I'm tempted to support it, but it might not be worth it and so I might > opt to bypass it altogether. Hope this helps, and good luck with your endeavours. Let us know if you make any progress and feel free to come back with questions. Maciej
