Relisys RWT200EM (Exilis TR333) Thin Client

A few months ago I was given a Relisys RWT200EM (also known as Exilis TR333) thin client (see detailed specs and review here).

I was expecting to "jailbreak" the thin client and get to install some sort of OS (DOS, Linux, early version of Windows on it). However, upon further testing, my disappointment soon came.

The thin client was manufactured by Exilis (also known as Relisys RWT200EM, see Relisys Thin Client) as shown in the splash screen:

 

It was re-branded by TOA E&I, a Singapore company, and manufactured in 2000 as shown in the about page:

All it will do is to boot up to a Windows CE Remote Desktop client:
 

Issue: unknown administrator password!

Upon pressing F2 to enter terminal settings, it prompts me for a password. I tried all default passwords and common passwords, only to be replied with an error message. I guess whoever last used the client has set an unknown password.

Without the password, the connection settings cannot be changed. And the default connection settings is so odd that the client won't connect via a normal network using DHCP:

About the only way to get this unit to do something is use a router and setup a network with the expected parameters, then create a remote desktop session from the client to other computers in the network, which seems pretty useless.

The keyboard settings follow Windows CE standard:

It supports up to 1280x1024 @ 60Hz display resolution. However, changing the resolution again asks me for the password,which I do not know:

Apparently it supports remote firmware update if the correct password is provided. Where to find firmware, I don't know:

Again, the password cannot be changed if the original password is not provided:

BIOS setup

All this seems to be a dead end. I tried to enter the BIOS to see if there's an option to reset the password there. The website provided at the beginning of this article suggests pressing F1 to enter BIOS,which doesn't work. What works is to connect a PS2 keyboard (a USB keyboard is only detected by Windows CE and not by BIOS) and press DEL repeatedly AFTER the power button is pressed but BEFORE the text "Starting System... please wait" appears. Pressing F1 during the "Starting system" phase will hang the boot process, with the keyboard still responsive - pressing Ctrl-Alt-DEL again will reboot the set. Probably reserved for some recovery ROM, etc. which was never implemented.

The unit is using the standard PC award BIOS:

Much like a PC BIOS, this bios has options to detect hard disks and set up floppy disk drives:

Examining the motherboard

There are empty connectors to solder an IDE connector (and also floppy connector, not shown) on the motherboard:

I guess luck was not on my side. Unlike the website author's unit which has empty connector holes, my holes are pre-filled with existing solder. I tried with a 60W soldering iron to clear the solder from the holes but the temperature was not hot enough to melt the solder. The same thing applies for the floppy connector. So installing a hard disk or a floppy disk is out of the question.

Upgrading the firmware

I also tried booting from USB or LAN without success. The only option now would have been to upgrade the firmware on board. The Windows CE firmware is stored on a 16MB M-System DiskOnChip 2000. Up to 64MB DOC is available on eBay. However, no programmer/reader for these DOC seems publicly available. My research reveals the following possible methods to read/write the DOC, none of which I can do myself:

1. You can use an old ISA network card, enable Boot ROM, insert the DOC to the socket on the network card. The system can boot from the DOC and see it as a disk drive.

My system does not have an ISA slot and I do not have any ISA network card.

2. Build your own ISA card to access the DOC. I found the PCB here but however no schematics or software is provided.

3. Use the DOC evaluation board (available for ISA and PCI), see this and this. However, it seems that the evaluation board is no longer in production (M-Systems was eventually taken over by Sandisk)

4. Use a programmer. A user guide is available here but it seems the programmer is rather expensive. It is also unknown to me how to create the image to be programmed.

5. There seems to be an SDK of some sort for the M-Systems DiskOnChip 2000 such as this but there seems to be no good tutorial.

With all possible methods leading to a dead end, I decided to give up on the unit, package it and find someone who is willing to buy it. The board also does not have a lot of components useful for hobby projects. Among these few are a speaker and some audio/LAN connectors but the time taken to desolder these components would definitely outweigh any savings they may offer.

See also:
eBox 3350MX x86 Compact PC
AMD Geode LX TR2350 mini x86-compatible motherboard

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Casio PB-700 and FA-11 Printer & Tape Recorder

I recently acquired an New Old Stock (NOS) Casio PB-700 with the FA-11 printer & tape recorder and an OR-4 memory module (4KB) from an eBay seller for a very cheap price. I know sometimes it's fun to play with old technology, and this article will share some of my findings.

The PB-700 packaging is still intact ever since 1984:

And so is the printer box. The left one is the paper cover, the right one is the plastic container for the printer and  accessories:

The user manuals for the two units:

The scanned PDF copy can be downloaded from here (for PB-700) and here (for FA-11). More user manuals of similiar early computers can be downloaded here

Exploring the PB-700

However, when I first powered up the set, it did not work properly. The PB-700 LCD was not displaying properly (perhaps due to aging). The computer still seemed functional and responded to basic command such as BEEP.

The FA-11 did not seem to power up at all. Perhaps the rechargable battery inside the unit had died due to aging. I tried to leave it charging for 2 days and it still could not turn on. The AC adapter provided 8.5V, way beyond its specifications of 6V DC output. Some research suggests that the AC adapter is unregulated, so it may produce higher voltage when no load is applied. Whatever it was, the seller was nice enough to exchange a working set for me.

This time everything is working - the LCD is fine and the printer is able to print, although with difficulty (more on that later). The following photo shows the complete setup:

My first "Hello World" program on this device works fine, so I attempt to write a program to plot the graph of a sine wave. Luckily a sample is given in the user manual:

Take note that the line numbers must be keyed into the actual program. They are not there just for demonstration. If you don't key in the line number, many control commands (FOR, WHILE, IF) will not work.

It took me 10 minutes to key in this program and modify it slightly to display the graph title. Here is the execution result:

If you have never worked with early computers before, you''ll be surprised at the execution speed. The following video shows you why:




It takes 20 seconds to plot the graph - you can literally see every pixels being drawn. Nowadays, modern computer can plot this graph in less than a second.

Testing the FA-11 Printer

My next try is to use a FOR loop with LPRINT to repeatedly print text to test the printer. The following video shows the printer in action:



It takes around 3 seconds to finish printing a single line of text, a slow speed thanks to the pen assembly.

There are a total of 4 pens, supporting 4 different colors. The horizontal stepper motor moves the pen assembly from left to right, a rotor will rotate the assembly to select the correct color, and a pin will push the required pen, touching the paper thus "plotting" the required text onto the screen. A very sophisticated piece of engineering! Unfortunately, this is an open-loop system - the printer does not have any ideas whether the pen assembly is correctly aligned. After a while, the pen assembly will no longer be calibrated causing the pen not to touch the paper and nothing will be printed. When this happens, I will have to stop the printing process and re-align. With care, the re-alignment can be done during printing when the pen assembly moves closer to the right.

Here is the printer output:

Because the pen slightly touches the paper when it moves from right to left during a carriage return and line feed, every line is underlined! The spacing between the lines is also not exactly equal thanks to the paper roller which doesn't care what happens to the paper during rolling. I am not sure if this is how the quality is supposed to be. Or perhaps I have an old unit...

The output would have looked like this when the plotter was new (thanks to damaltor for posting the photo):

Tape recording & playback

My next try is to use the tape recorder to read and write programs:

The tape is just the normal cassette tape, used in the days of the Walkman. Program are stored as audio tones, with different tones for binary 0 and binary 1. Some more information is available here.

This is a closer look at the cassette tape. Interestingly, the tape comes with the erase prevention tab removed (thus the REC button can't be pressed). I have to put some paper in the holes to allow recording.

Using the SAVE command will store the current program as tones on the tape, to be retrieved later. The recorder plays the tones to be recorded during the process, making a sound similar to a dial-up modem connecting. Download the audio here.

Unfortunately, I am unable to read back the saved program using the LOAD command. The command simply hangs and I have to stop it. The recorder plays the tones of the saved program, which sound significantly different from what was recorded. Perhaps the audio head has malfunctioned due to aging, or the magnetic tape has degraded over the years and no longer suitable for recording.

Hope you will learn something new about old computer technology after reading this article. Except for having fun while testing it, the unit is not very useful to me. I have not even figured out how to insert a new line when editing a program (it's not mentioned in the manual). Therefore, after writing this article, the unit will probably soon be put in my closet.

More technical information about the Casio PB-700 computer series and accessories is available here

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iPhone SDK on Mac OS X 10.6.4 under VmWare - Tips and Tricks

This articles describes some common problems when using running Mac OS X 10.6.4  under VmWare using the instructions from my previous post and provides possible solutions/workarounds. To upgrade to 10.6.8, refer to this article.

1. If you get an "rtclock_init panic" (shown below) and the system hangs while booting up:

press TAB at the Chameleon bootloader, select the Mac partition and enter -v busratio=18. OSX should then be able to boot. To make the busratio=18 permanent,  edit /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist using nano/pico from Terminal (remember to do su/sudo to get admin right first), then look for the Kernel Flags section (add it in if it's not there). The final plist should look like the following:

 <key>Kernel Flags</key>
  
 <string>-v busratio=18</string>  

Other useful bootloader parameters:
-v: verbose mode, which will show all boot messages on the screen. Without this you will only see the loading logo while booting up.
-x: boot in safe mode. Only kext critical for the system will be loaded.
-s: boot into single user mode, e.g. command line only.
acpi=off: turn off ACPI support.
cpus=1: tell the virtual machine to boot with only 1 CPU.
-x32 or arch=i386: boot in 32-bit mode

2. You may notice that some graphics applications won't be able to display graphics properly. In particular, the Preview application won't be able to display images, and pressing Apple-Shift-3 or Apple-Shift-4 (Apple key is mapped to Windows key) to capture screenshot will just return an empty black image. This is due to the lack of QE/CI support on the graphics card emulated by VmWare. Unfortunately, I found no workaround for it.

3. By default, the Apple key will map to the Windows key. If you want to map it something else (for example, the Alt key), follow the following steps:

* Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier keys

* Switch option key to command key (dropdown) and command key to option key (dropdown) - optional

4. For some reasons the hard disk image will be corrupted after some activity, and the virtual machine could not boot up, showing the following hard disk error:

I have not found out the root cause of this and therefore could not find any fix. A workaround is to set up a perfect working virtual machine that requires no further changes and set up the hard disk as non-persistent, which will discard all changes upon shutdown as per the following screenshot:

You may also want to add another persistent hard disk to virtual machine and only make change to the added hard disk. The main hard disk remains non-persistent. Alternatively, once you get the machine working as desired, take a snapshot and revert back to it should any problem occur.

5. To get sound working, install EnsoniqAudioPCI_v1.0.3_Common_Installer.pkg and reboot the virtual machine. Software updates will also work fine and I have used it to update successfully to 10.6.8 without any hassle.

I hope this helps those with similar problems. I will add to this list any other tricks that may be useful.

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