Author Topic: Inside the TI-Nspire CM-C, at last!  (Read 8029 times)

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Offline critor

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Inside the TI-Nspire CM-C, at last!
« on: September 16, 2012, 02:12:04 pm »
Tonight, let's finally discover the long awaited images of the inside of a TI-Nspire CM-C, the one Adriweb went searching in Asia before giving lending it to me after coming back. :P

As already predicted in our previous news, you will discover a motherboard organized very differently from the TI-Nspire CX one:

Unlike the TI-Nspire CX, there are two boards on the TI-Nspire CM instead of three on the TI-Nspire CX:
  • the screen borad (motherboard) is a RABBIT_MB_DVT_6420 on the TI-Nspire CM instead of a FireBird_Color_MB_6422 on the TI-Nspire CX
  • the keypad board is a RABBIT_KB_NONCAS_DVT_4420 on the TI-Nspire CM instead of a FireBird_Noncas_Color_KB_EVT_4421 on the TI-Nspire CX
It seems that we were right once again, when announcing in a previous news that the TI-Nspire CM code name was Rabbit

As in another previous news, we notice the keypad board is once again specific to the non-CAS model. The CAS keypad board would probably be a RABBIT_KB_DVT_4420.



The third card on the TI-Nspire CX which is missing here on the TI-Nspire CM is the dock connector.

However, the J4 test / debug connector is there in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen board and should be usable in place of the dock connector to get the bootlog, like we did on the TI-Nspire Lab Station Cradle.



The TI-Nspire CM is showing us two main chips on the screen board instead of three on the TI-Nspire CX:

The visible chips are:
  • the ASIC
  • a TI 6C053A1 present on all Nspire models since the TI-Nspire TouchPad whose purpose is unknown
We allready said that the ASIC was including the processor but also the Flash NOR ROM chip (boot1) and the RAM.

The first question which comes to mind as the TI-Nspire CX have 64MB of RAM and the TI-Nspire CM 32MB is whether ASIC is the same or not ... If it is the same, it means that there are 32MB of RAM which have been disabled some way...



The chip which is lacking is the 128MB Flash NAND ROM. Was it moved to the ASIC too? Or was it just moved on behind the board? Let's see...
Yes, the missing 128MB NAND chip is on the back:



Source:
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10394&lang=en
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Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: Inside the TI-Nspire CM-C, at last!
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2012, 03:13:54 am »
Sweet :)

Offline critor

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Re: Inside the TI-Nspire CM-C, at last!
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2012, 02:06:13 pm »
I managed to get the bootlog! :)

There is no dock connector, but we can use the RS232 port on the J4 test/debug connector.




Source:
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10404
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Offline TheNlightenedOne

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Re: Re: Inside the TI-Nspire CM-C, at last!
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2012, 03:19:52 pm »
That's pretty cool, nice work (as usual) critor!
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Offline Sorunome

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Re: Inside the TI-Nspire CM-C, at last!
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2012, 07:11:43 pm »
Yeah, pretty cool ^^

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Offline apcalc

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Re: Inside the TI-Nspire CM-C, at last!
« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2012, 05:58:16 pm »
Great discovery! :)