Author Topic: Let's hack the HP Prime!  (Read 117478 times)

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Let's hack the HP Prime!
« on: August 18, 2013, 08:16:03 pm »
This is a topic where we should gather all information we can in order to hack the HP Prime for ASM/C support. Basically, if you have made any discoveries or if you have an idea, feel free to share it!

Make sure to not upload copyrighted material such as OS code or Boot1/2/whatever, though.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2013, 12:04:11 pm by DJ Omnimaga »

Offline Juju

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2013, 08:20:07 pm »
I approve of this topic. It would only be real active when most of us will have a HP Prime in our hands because the simulator, well, it's not an emulator.

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2013, 08:25:30 pm »
Indeed. Of course it will depend of who actually both program in ASM/C and owns the calc, but still, even people who just got the emulator (assuming it accurately runs the OS) could possibly help.

Offline critor

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2013, 08:51:56 pm »
By holding the [Symb] key while pressing reset on the back, you enter the OS recevory mode.

By holding all three [ F ] [ C ] [ O ] keys while pressing reset on the back, you get some kind of a maintenance/diagnostic menu.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2013, 08:52:15 pm by critor »
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Offline Juju

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2013, 10:09:08 pm »
Nice! Can you show pics?

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Offline Adriweb

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2013, 11:30:04 pm »
I do believe that having an actual emulator would be quite (if not extremely) useful.
Maybe taking some parts from nspire_emu could be a good base, considering the processor is pretty much the same.

Some info:
The firmware binairies aren't encrypted (at all). But I guess that the people who know about ARM ASM programming already looked at the .elf files and figured that out ^^

Like on the Nspire, the next step would be to look for flaws (buffer overflow etc.) but again I'll leave that to people who know about this ^^


(BTW, not completely hacking-related, but here is a bit of info about the transfer protocol : http://tiplanet.org/hpwiki/HP_Prime/Linking_Protocol )
In fact it would be cool to have some official documentation of the protocol, from HP. In fact, for TI, TILP (which is especially useful (the only option, in fact) for Linux users) has been made through painful reverse-enginnering through USB sniffing/dumpings. As HP looks more open to the community, maybe they would give the interested people some documentation so that a linking program could be coded for Linux, mainly :)
« Last Edit: August 19, 2013, 05:40:26 am by adriweb »
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Offline SpiroH

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2013, 03:58:50 am »
I do believe that having an actual emulator would be quite (if not extremely) useful.
That would be great indeed but a lot of work too. :-\
Quote
As HP looks more open to the community, maybe they would give the interested people some documentation so that a linking program could be coded for Linux, mainly :)
I think both Omnimaga and TI-Planet should be eligible as HP beta testers and be given some privileged technical info. Let's hope HP sniffers read these messages and are sensible enough to provide some more useful insight.

Offline Adriweb

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2013, 04:28:03 am »
Critor and I are officially beta testers already, btu we don't have access to technical info more than anyone here.
And, well, the linking protocol isn't so much a "private" in a sense that it just can get reversed-engineered, but it takes quite some time.

And what bad can giving some doc on the linking protocol do anyway :P
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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2013, 06:03:10 am »
Why not base a community emulator on an existing emulator framework such as QEMU, BTW ?
It's easy to find a fork of an old version of QEMU suitable for a S3C244x-based board, and while I haven't looked at the datasheets of both the S3C2416 and the relevant S3C244x (only at the S3C2416), chances are that they do share some devices.
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Offline critor

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2013, 08:41:20 am »
Nice! Can you show pics?

The post is not available in english yet, but you can find some HP-Prime Diagnostic pictures in the latest TI-Planet news:
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=12860
« Last Edit: August 19, 2013, 08:51:22 am by critor »
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Offline Keoni29

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2013, 09:59:30 am »
How do you update firmware on the calc? Do you use that menu for it or can you do it by hooking it up to the pc and click update firmware in some sort of update client program?
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Offline critor

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2013, 11:15:24 am »
The firmware mentioned in the Diagnostic seems to be only for the touch screen.

If by firmware you mean the OS, I use the recovery mode accessible by holding [Symb] while resetting the calculator.
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Offline Keoni29

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2013, 11:23:09 am »
And recovery mode takes firmware from a file on the calculator?
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Offline critor

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2013, 11:27:57 am »
The OS has to be sent from the computer with a specific tool.
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Offline Keoni29

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2013, 01:03:40 pm »
And that tool obviously checks the os first.
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