blueDonkey.org
Linux.Ceiva3PhotoFrame
Background
This page describes all the information I have collected about hacking into the Ceiva 3 Digital Photo Frame and its associated broadband (ethernet) adapter.
Web Information
Web pages on the internet that document information about hacking the older Ceiva photo frames:Web pages relevant to the newer Ceiva 3 devices:
- Heeltoe.com pages:
- Sharp pages:
- Bluestreak Software Library (requires free account)
- Discussion Forums
- Documentation Library (requires free account)
- Flash memory part
- http://wiki.buici.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/SharpLH7A40x
Collected Information
-- JohnGordon - 01 Dec 2005USB Broadband Adapter Information
See the Ceiva 3 Broadband Adapter page.Main Board Photos
The main board is relatively small, and a little difficult to get to. You will need a T6 torx driver (small). Proceed by removing the exchangable frame surround. Under that you will see the first set of screws holding the plastic to the base; remove those and gently remove the plastic cover. Next you will need to release the LCD panel and gently fold it out of the way being careful not to put any stress on the conecting cable. Under the screen is the main board, but the component side is facing the back of the unit, so you will need to unscrew that as well to be able to do anything with it. That will get you to this:For those who want a closer look at the board, look at the high resolution version of the image.
CPU
The CPU is a Sharp LH7A400 which is an ARM922T based device.
DRAM
DRAM is a Hynix HY57V641620HG (note that page is for a part suffix 'ET' but they are probably very similar; cannot find 'HG' as a referenced suffix on the Hynix website). The parts are 8MB each, and there are two on the board, so we have 16MB of DRAM to play with.
Flash
Flash is provided by a Sharp LH28F640SPHT part, which is 8MB of flash memory.
Serial and JTAG
From the looks of the board there is a very clear serial port, even has the functions of the four connections labelled in the silk screen which makes a pleasant change. The other empty connection there looks like it might be a JTAG port should one be needed. Next step is to get a serial console connected, via a level converter, and see whether it does anything with the default software.
Serial Port Connection
Using an RLC-1 I managed to connect the serial port to my PC's serial port and monitor the console at boot. Speed is 38400 8N1 and the output looks like this (from poweron):BOOT V0005 LOAD V012d Attaching interface lo0... done Invalid device "0" VxWorks Copyright 1984-2002 Wind River Systems, Inc. CPU: Sharp lh7a400 Runtime Name: VxWorks Runtime Version: 5.5.1 BSP version: 1.2/0 Created: Aug 18 2005, 18:45:45 WDB Comm Type: WDB_COMM_NETWORK WDB: Ready. USBD Initialized. ISP1161 Controller found. Waiting to attach to USBD...ut8OHCI_HC_RH_DESCR_A: 0xff000901 Done. usbKeyboardDevInit() returned OK fbAddress0=0xc0ed4000, fbAddress1=0xc0f6a000So, pretty much as expected it is running VxWorks? (the first Ceiva units were designed by Wind River, but using pSOS since they came out of the services group that had come with the acquisition of Wind's failing competitor ISI). Looks from the comment at the end there as though it might actually support a USB keyboard connected to the "C-Port" USB connector. The ISP1161 is the Philips USB host controller that Sharp's reference design for this CPU also used to get USB host capability (which means that the Linux distro from the reference board should also have USB host capability on here).
