If anyone could extract the run.bin file (If it's possible using Syphon) from a DHD4000 and email it to me I would be very grateful. I would like to try to use this run.bin file in my FVRT100, purely for experimental purposes.

The Thomson burns its code into flash memory and the Fusion does not. You could end up with a large, expensive paperweight if the Thomson run.bin tries to flash itself into a flash that doesn't support it.

PM me with your email address, and I'll send you the one I have.

David,

You have mail.

Have you tried writing the Thomson software on your Fusion Craig?

I would have thought that if the Digifusion runs its bin file from the hard disc, that it holds its base software in ROM. By definition, you can't write over it.

What do people think of this as a theory?

I don't actually understand what you mean. The way the Fusion works is that it has a bootloader in ROM, room for one copy of software in ROM and room for another copy of software in run.bin on the drive. As it boots up the bootloader tries to access the drive and locate a run.bin. If there's one found and it has no errors it loads it from the drive to RAM and runs it. If there isn't one it loads the ROM copy to RAM and runs it. When the Fusion gets a software update it receives a new run.$$$ then renames the existing run.bin to be oldrun.bin and the new one to be run.bin - that will be found at the next reboot. The only way to replace the run.bin in ROM is to squirt it up the RS232 on the back using Xmodem.

As far as I know, in the Thomson it has more ROM available so there's room for both the bootloader and TWO copies of the main application in ROM and there's a flag that says which of those two copies is the active one. At boot time the bootloader copies the active one to RAM and runs it. At a software update it receives a new image of the software (run.bin) that is first stored to the hard drive. Once all is received it then programs it into the non active flash slot and when that completes it marks this one as "active" instead. It's also possible to put an initial run.bin into ROM by squirting it up the RS232 like the Fusion.

Cliff

Thanks Cliff,

I understand from your detailed explanation that the worst that could happen if you load the Thomson run.bin on to the disc, is that you would have a Fusion that didn't work.

To fix it, you would put the Fusion run.bin back on the drive and it would overwrite that into RAM and everything would be back to normal.

Correct?

That's an interesting thought - has anyone done this successfully? It'd be nice to have 1.7.5 in ROM rather than the craptacular 1.6.3 (sorry, veering wildly off the Thomson topic..)

Boinng,

I once had a mad idea about doing that once the extractor programs exposed run.bin to us. But while it seems like the 4TV bootloader wants to "talk" Xmodem-CRC (it boots with a few CCCC output before it continues on to other stuff) we don't know that what it's expecting is just a binary run.bin as found on the disk. It could be (for example) expecting a file in Intel hex format, or maybe one in Elf/Dwarf2 format (or whatever it is that ST uses for object format). So if one just started an Xmodem-CRC of a run.bin and that wasn't what it wanted it might completely brick the thing. (so I thought better of it!)

As the only gain would be 1.7.5 in ROM if the hard drive were wiped and yet we can now put 1.7.5 onto a a virgin hard drive anyway the benefit would not IMHO outweight the potential risks!

Cliff

The general hope with bootloaders is that "when all else fails they can STILL dig you out of the stew". So I'd say that yes that experiment would probably be possible without risk of danger as long as nothing ever goes near over-writing the bootloader in ROM.

Cliff
(I'm not sure I'd risk the experiment of a Fusion run.bin in a Thomson box though as the Thomson may decide to flash it and getting stuff out of flash you don't want there can be quite a lot trickier than replacing a file on a hard drive!)

Double post error.

You sound pretty knowledgeable about the Thomson box. Any idea why, when I put a run.bin on the hard drive, my Thomson doesn't appear to know it's there?