Author Topic: Let's hack the HP Prime!  (Read 118463 times)

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Offline Streetwalrus

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #135 on: October 29, 2013, 11:31:26 am »
the calculator is not running Windows CE.
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Offline timwessman

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #136 on: October 29, 2013, 12:55:12 pm »
Does anyone have any clue where that idea came from? I've been unable to track it down myself after some time looking.
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Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #137 on: October 29, 2013, 01:01:40 pm »
Well, the OS did contain several strings that pointed towards that direction, plus the fact that appdisk contained EXE+DLL files.
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« Last Edit: October 29, 2013, 01:04:47 pm by Jim Bauwens »

Offline Streetwalrus

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #138 on: October 29, 2013, 01:02:00 pm »
Just out of curiosity : are you using a base RTOS or is the software written from scratch ?

Offline SpiroH

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #139 on: October 29, 2013, 01:50:13 pm »
Just out of curiosity : are you using a base RTOS or is the software written from scratch ?
Well, almost nothing is written from scratch nowadays even when they claim so. ;)

Offline Streetwalrus

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #140 on: October 29, 2013, 01:59:02 pm »
Linux is.
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Offline willrandship

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #141 on: October 29, 2013, 02:00:01 pm »
Well, can you call it from scratch when it's not written in machine code? He uses the C libraries quite heavily, and he didn't write them.

Offline Streetwalrus

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #142 on: October 29, 2013, 02:03:05 pm »
Well, this says otherwise :
Quote
The kernel is written using GNU C and the GNU toolchain.  While it
adheres to the ISO C89 standard, it uses a number of extensions that are
not featured in the standard.  The kernel is a freestanding C
environment, with no reliance on the standard C library, so some
portions of the C standard are not supported.  Arbitrary long long
divisions and floating point are not allowed.  It can sometimes be
difficult to understand the assumptions the kernel has on the toolchain
and the extensions that it uses, and unfortunately there is no
definitive reference for them.  Please check the gcc info pages (`info
gcc`) for some information on them.
Source : https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/HOWTO

Offline willrandship

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #143 on: October 29, 2013, 02:05:49 pm »
Good point.

Offline SpiroH

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #144 on: October 29, 2013, 02:13:21 pm »
Well, this says otherwise : ...
Well, before Linux there was MINIX: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix
"MINIX is a Unix-like computer operating system based on a microkernel architecture created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum for educational purposes; MINIX also inspired the creation of the Linux kernel."

But that was before you were born, oh well. :P

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #145 on: October 29, 2013, 02:14:02 pm »
Does anyone have any clue where that idea came from? I've been unable to track it down myself after some time looking.
Yeah I was wondering that too. I didn't hear about the possibility of it using Windows CE until today.
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Offline willrandship

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #146 on: October 29, 2013, 02:14:21 pm »
Linux was not based on MINIX's code. I have heard of it.

Offline Ryleh

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #147 on: October 29, 2013, 02:25:32 pm »
As far as hardware is concerned, does anyone know if the topmost layer of the screen is removable/replaceable or is it attached to the screen/digitizer itself?

Offline Juju

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #148 on: October 29, 2013, 04:00:27 pm »
Linux was not based on MINIX's code. I have heard of it.
The Linux kernel has indeed been written from scratch, based on theories learnt from Minix.

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Offline quitte

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #149 on: November 18, 2013, 10:17:49 am »
Since the home variables keep getting in my way I'm very much interested in modifying the firmware to get rid of them or rename them to something like chinese characters.

I took a look at the strings of the firmware files myself, and gave the usb tool a try.

It looks like the bootloader is a general purpose one that is capable of booting both PE and ELF format binaries from at least yaffs2 and fat filesystems. It seems to have support for the lcd, usb and serial.
I wouldn't be surprised if it provided an interface via the uart - but am not going to try myself since I need to resolve a minor hardware defecrt with hp first.

The programs in the filesystem are statically linked. So what could the dlls be for? I can thinik of two possibilities: 1. The PPL compiler/linker needs them to create binaries. 2. They have just been forgotten and they can be used with appropriate headers to link our own programs for the prime's OS

I wonder what would happen if they went missing.


The firstboot.ini suggests that on the first boot something special happens. I would very much like to know what the flash content is like on an actual calculator after it has been used. Unfortunately the usb util gave me 256MB worth of zeros :(