Rockbox Technical Forums

Rockbox Development => New Ports => Topic started by: LambdaCalculus on December 06, 2007, 01:34:00 PM

Title: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on December 06, 2007, 01:34:00 PM
I have been struck by the Idea Storm again, folks.  :)

A coworker has just recently shown me a most coveted prize: the Rio Karma... truly a DAP of hardcore proportions. Anyone who has owned (or will own!) this DAP know of its rich features, such as... Rockbox?

Wait... no Rockbox on it? Are you daft?

So now I'm on the hunt for information about the Karma, and I've gotten quite a lot of good information on hand!

-- The Karma is PortalPlayer based; it has a PP5003 SoC, dual-core ARM7 which can clock at up to 90Mhz. This is essentially the same as the PP5002, but with the "broken" cache fixed. (I should note that the Karma played both Vorbis and FLAC natively, so of course the CPU had to be powerful enough to handle it!)

-- Quite a bit of the hardware inside is similar to other supported targets; for example, the Karma uses the same Hitachi hard drives as the iriver H10 20GB, and the DAC/headphone amp is a Wolfson 8721/8731... the same as in the early iPods!

-- There's much more to be said, but I'm going to be posting that to its upcoming wiki page.

I don't have my own Karma (yet), but once I get one...  ;)



Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: scharkalvin on December 06, 2007, 02:08:41 PM
Here's your chance to snag a few of them.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-Of-5-Rio-Karma-20GB-MP3-Players-90260461-5000-Songs_W0QQitemZ170174719952QQihZ007QQcategoryZ51004QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: evilnick on December 06, 2007, 02:09:24 PM
I've had a few (3) Karmas in my time. They were waaaay ahead of their time and it was only when I found out about Rockbox on the H1x0 series that I decided to jump ship.

The main disadvantage was in the non-standard database-only way of loading files - just like the iPod, although there was a way of loading "regular files" onto it, but these couldn't be played by the firmware.

ISTR that there was quite a bit of interest in hacking this. I'd recommend searching on the forums at Riovolution.com and also as the codebase was the evolution (or at least similar to) the Empeg series of car players then there has been some discussion there too. (For where 'there' is, that'll have to be a job for Google).

Shame that it was plagued by HDD issues as it was ergonomically sound, played gapless ogg/flac/mp3 and had some really nifty db features (anyone who's owned one and hung around said Riovolution foums enough will remember "Wendy flags" with fondness!).

Best of luck with this, Lambda.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on December 06, 2007, 03:19:39 PM
Here's your chance to snag a few of them.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-Of-5-Rio-Karma-20GB-MP3-Players-90260461-5000-Songs_W0QQitemZ170174719952QQihZ007QQcategoryZ51004QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


I see lots like that often, so I may pick up a lot after Xmas is over.

If I manage to, I'll gladly send out some Karmas from that lot to any devs who are interested, and purchase one fully working one for the day Rockbox's logo does splash onto the screen. :)
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on December 07, 2007, 03:08:05 AM
I used to have one of these players too - it's what my iRiver H140 ended up replacing because I ran out of disc space on it. Also - one of my very good friends was one of the developers on it :)
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: bascule on December 07, 2007, 04:47:26 AM
At the risk of turning this thread into a dewy-eyed reminiscence session I too used to have a Karma and the physical interface was absolutely superb.

You could operate almost all the functionality from the corner scrollwheel via a combination of spinning or clicking it. You could have the current playlist as the WPS, so you could see further ahead, but still have playback and volume control.

It was the Karma that got me into MP3 players, but also introduced me (via their forums) to Vorbis and properly-tagged files. It is also why I now exclusively use the Rockbox Database, as the Karma was also fantastic in that regard, allowing insertion and deletion of whole albums or artists and automagically building playlists based on previous listening patterns (RioDJ, anyone?  8-) ).

It may also have been on there (although I forget now) that Rockbox was mentioned, leading me to this fantstic community once all (three!) of my Karmas had breathed their last via a combination of HDD and USB connectivity failures...

It was a sad day that the Rio brand was sold out, with all the technical and interface innovation now apparently lost, followed shortly by the infiltration and subsequent death-by-spamming of the forums.

Although I kind of like the idea of a Rockbox port, I don't think I'd go back now. I'm really loving my Rockboxed Sansa... which, incidentally, I use upside-down because having the wheel at the top makes the operation as close as I feel I can get on any of the current targets to a Karma and works really well for me, as I like to use one-digit operation as much as possible and I can now operate most function with just my thumb using the wheel and the Select button.

I'll shut up and get my coat now...
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on December 07, 2007, 04:58:41 AM
I think I agree - the Karma was the opposite of most of the Rockbox targets. The OF was actually really good, and only let down by the shoddy hardware. Mine went back to the CEO/CTO of Empeg himself at least once to get him to mend it.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on December 07, 2007, 06:49:48 AM
No arguments here that the OF in the Karma was the bee's knees... but some of the reasons Rockbox would be beneficial are:

1) We can add in the missing codecs supported by Rockbox, such as Musepack, Monkey's Audio, and AAC.

2) Most everything in the Karma OF is already in Rockbox, and

3) Why not? :)

When the holidays are over, I'll hit eBay and get a lot of Karmas for the porting effort. My offer still stands to the devs!
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on December 07, 2007, 09:13:58 AM
1) We can add in the missing codecs supported by Rockbox, such as Musepack, Monkey's Audio, and AAC.

Monkey's Audio on a decrepit PortalPlayer target? You're kidding right ? :)

Quote
3) Why not? :)

Scarcity of working hardware. But by all means go ahead!

Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on December 07, 2007, 10:17:44 AM
Monkey's Audio on a decrepit PortalPlayer target? You're kidding right ? :)

 ;D

At least we can have Musepack and AAC, though!

Anyway, like I mentioned before, it turns out that the PP5003 in the Karma is very, very similar to the PP5002, except that (from what I read) the PP5002 had a "crippled" cache, and the PP5003 doesn't. So the PP5003 might be a little better performance-wise.

I'm going to hunt down datasheets and as much information for the unique hardware in the Karma, but since a lot of its internal hardware is also in some of the other targets we support (iPod and H10, I'm looking at you two! :)), that should make it less painful to start a port.

Oh yes, almost forgot... gotta see the firmware upgrade format on the Karma. I hope the Deities Above and Below are good to me and reveal that they're mi4-based!
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on December 07, 2007, 10:20:00 AM
Anyway, like I mentioned before, it turns out that the PP5003 in the Karma is very, very similar to the PP5002, except that (from what I read) the PP5002 had a "crippled" cache, and the PP5003 doesn't. So the PP5003 might be a little better performance-wise.

You recall that even the Gigabeat is known to struggle with Monkey's right ?

Quote
Oh yes, almost forgot... gotta see the firmware upgrade format on the Karma. I hope the Deities Above and Below are good to me and reveal that they're mi4-based!

Don't hold your breath...
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on December 07, 2007, 10:26:52 AM
You recall that even the Gigabeat is known to struggle with Monkey's right ?

Yes, I've read about that on the Monkey's Audio wiki page. But that's the fault of the author of the codec for making it so slow.

Quote
Don't hold your breath...

I won't. :)
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: scharkalvin on December 07, 2007, 10:46:34 AM
Lambda:
From what I've read the Karma's weak spot was the HD.  You might take a look at the CF/HD adapter I used in my attempt to convert my Gigabeat F10 to use a CF card to replace the Karma's HD.  (I'm investigating so random disk read errors with mine, probably the CF isn't as fast as the disk in the interface and might need something in the ATA logic to compensate.  But this adapter was reported to work in ipods so the HW idea is probably sound).
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on December 07, 2007, 02:07:06 PM
The wiki page is up!

http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/RioKarmaPort

scharkalvin: The iriver H10 and the Dell DJ (which I haven't forgotten about! ;)) use the same hard drive. It's a Hitachi Travelstar Model HTC424020F7AT00 drive, 44-pin, horizontal orientation. So we would need to find a CF-to-IDE adapter that fits into the case, which is a wee little thing to begin with!
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: evilnick on January 02, 2008, 07:05:30 PM
Quote
I'd recommend searching on the forums at Riovolution.com and also as the codebase was the evolution (or at least similar to) the Empeg series of car players then there has been some discussion there too. (For where 'there' is, that'll have to be a job for Google).

and then today you're thankful that someone in IRC pointed you in that direction... I'm offended!
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 02, 2008, 07:58:55 PM
Sorry, evilnick... you did give me the idea originally. That is true.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: ukre on January 04, 2008, 02:04:02 AM
Monkey's Audio on a decrepit PortalPlayer target? You're kidding right ? :)

 ;D

At least we can have Musepack and AAC, though!

Anyway, like I mentioned before, it turns out that the PP5003 in the Karma is very, very similar to the PP5002, except that (from what I read) the PP5002 had a "crippled" cache, and the PP5003 doesn't. So the PP5003 might be a little better performance-wise.

I'm going to hunt down datasheets and as much information for the unique hardware in the Karma, but since a lot of its internal hardware is also in some of the other targets we support (iPod and H10, I'm looking at you two! :)), that should make it less painful to start a port.

Oh yes, almost forgot... gotta see the firmware upgrade format on the Karma. I hope the Deities Above and Below are good to me and reveal that they're mi4-based!

Here's what I remember, FWIW... I did a lot of the HW design and bringup of the platform...

The 5003 is really similar to the 5020 in terms of register locations; it's more an early 5020 than a late 5002. Beyond that, I can't really help. Speed is the same as a 5020 pretty much. I think it had 96kB of IRAM vs 64kB on the 5002 and 128k on the 5020?

No idea what you mean by "mi4" based for the firmware. The Karma firmware is stored in flash (4MB - Intel 28F320) and is copied to RAM before being run, though resources live on disk ISTR, in a system filesystem. There's 16MB of SDRAM in there.

USB is a tweaked MSC (so it doesn't appear as MSC because of the FS) running essentially what is ReplayTV's journalled filesystem. No reason why you can't load the vanilla MSC code from Cypress onto the USB controller and just use it as a normal MSC device. There's a low-bandwidth side-channel (I2C) to the main CPU used for things like setting the time.

Flash upgrades are done by laying down a new firmware image at the start of the disk (I think the first 16MB is the "system" area) and sending a reboot command which forces the bootrom - stored in the locked-down area of the flash - to pull the mildly-encrypted image from disk and flash it. We used to also have a flash bootstrap image that'd just boot images from disk as this was quicker for development.

The 5003 also had onboard 100mbit ethernet, as supported by the shipping sw, but this was very flaky to work with and you had to use IRAM for everything... we had to jump through many hoops to get ethernet reliable and hooked up to the eCos stack.

Speaking of eCos, we ran the last version under the RHEPL, and submitted the diffs back to redhat per the license terms. Getting hold of the diffs would give you a lot of info about the hardware....
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on January 04, 2008, 03:09:04 AM
ukre,

Thanks for the response - it's much appreciated.

Just a quick query on one of your points above :

Quote
The 5003 is really similar to the 5020 in terms of register locations; it's more an early 5020 than a late 5002. Beyond that, I can't really help. Speed is the same as a 5020 pretty much. I think it had 96kB of IRAM vs 64kB on the 5002 and 128k on the 5020?

All the knowledge we have of the register locations for *any* of the portal player targets we have is based on guess work / reverse engineering. Do you have any solid docs still lying around anywhere which can actually confirm any of this work we've done?
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: ukre on January 04, 2008, 11:24:10 AM
ukre,

Thanks for the response - it's much appreciated.

Just a quick query on one of your points above :

Quote
The 5003 is really similar to the 5020 in terms of register locations; it's more an early 5020 than a late 5002. Beyond that, I can't really help. Speed is the same as a 5020 pretty much. I think it had 96kB of IRAM vs 64kB on the 5002 and 128k on the 5020?

All the knowledge we have of the register locations for *any* of the portal player targets we have is based on guess work / reverse engineering. Do you have any solid docs still lying around anywhere which can actually confirm any of this work we've done?

Nope, 'fraid not. Previous company. I was just saying that what you have for the 5020 has more chance of working than 5002 stuff.

If you can get the eCos source diffs then you will get some register maps I believe, eg timers, IRQ controller, etc.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 04, 2008, 11:34:15 AM
ukre, we have a wiki page for the Karma here:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RioKarmaPort

Any information you have for the Karma can be posted there, and would be much appreciated.

I still need to get a Karma in my hands; my coworker who showed me his refuses to part with it.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on January 04, 2008, 04:07:08 PM
Nope, 'fraid not. Previous company. I was just saying that what you have for the 5020 has more chance of working than 5002 stuff.

If you can get the eCos source diffs then you will get some register maps I believe, eg timers, IRQ controller, etc.


Any idea of who might be a good contact to talk to at Redhat? Also - which company were you submitting the diffs from? Rio? Empeg? Rough idea on dates so I could help them track the things down ?

Any help would be super appreciated!
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: ukre on January 05, 2008, 03:20:54 PM
Nope, 'fraid not. Previous company. I was just saying that what you have for the 5020 has more chance of working than 5002 stuff.

If you can get the eCos source diffs then you will get some register maps I believe, eg timers, IRQ controller, etc.


Any idea of who might be a good contact to talk to at Redhat? Also - which company were you submitting the diffs from? Rio? Empeg? Rough idea on dates so I could help them track the things down ?

Any help would be super appreciated!


Not really; RedHat shut down their eCos development years ago now. Maybe try emailing the Sourceware people who took it on? http://ecos.sourceware.com

The diffs were submitted from Rio, I guess around Karma launch time. Late 2003?
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 05, 2008, 05:16:00 PM
Very much worth a try. Thanks for that, ukre.

(EDIT): ukre's link doesn't work, but this one does: http://ecos.sourceware.org/
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on January 07, 2008, 07:19:31 AM
Just as a note for people watching this thread, I've today sent an email to the ecos discussion list enquiring about these patches.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 07, 2008, 08:03:39 AM
I now officially owe GodEater a beer of his choosing. ;)
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: linuxstb on January 07, 2008, 08:34:31 AM
ukre,

Do you remember the exact license Rio used ecos under?  The only version of the RHEPL I can find is here:

http://ecos.sourceware.org/old-license.html

If I'm reading that license correctly, paragraph 3.2 is saying that Rio should have offered recipients of the executable (i.e. firmware binary) their diffs to the ecos source code, not just RedHat.

I've no idea who owns the Rio source code nowadays, but it seems the firmware is still being distributed via rioaudio.com, so I would interpret the RHEPL to mean that that organisation should also be offering the source code changes.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: pdh11 on January 10, 2008, 11:09:15 AM
The Ecos diff from last-rhepl is on the CD that came with every Rio Karma. Subsequent firmware releases didn't include any new modifications to Ecos itself. I believe that the licensing conditions allow anyone with that CD to repost the diff (but check first!); I don't have a copy to hand myself any more.

I don't like to pour cold water on this -- especially as I once said that nobody would ever reverse-engineer the Karma USB protocol, but people did -- but there are substantial obstacles to third-party firmware on the Rio Karma.

Firstly, the firmware is encrypted. I'm pretty sure that the bootrom will refuse to boot firmware images that haven't been encrypted with the correct key.

Secondly, datasheets on some of the chips used are hard to obtain without NDA. The Ipod Linux people have reverse-engineered some of the on-chip peripherals of the PP5002 and PP5020, but I don't know how different the PP5003 was.

Thirdly, there is a very serious silicon bug in the cache on the PP5003. If you ever flush the cache (or a region of it), it can get into a state where the wrong cache line gets written randomly somewhere in external memory. And, because the two CPUs on the 5003 are not cache-coherent, you end up flushing the cache a lot if you try and run stuff on both CPUs simultaneously. (Which you need to do, because the two clocks are locked together, so if you've got 90MHz worth of work to do, it uses much less power to run both CPUs at 45MHz than it does to do it all on one CPU and have the other doing 90MHz worth of nothing.) There is a workaround, which is only available because (bizarrely but fortunately) the 5003 memory-maps the entire internal logic of the cache controller, so you can go and rewrite all the tags and dirty bits to point to somewhere innocuous. Do not issue a cache flush, on either CPU, without following it up (running from IRAM) with the workaround sequence: arbitrary code or data will be overwritten, and your program will randomly crash. (Like, *cough*, the Karma 1.0 firmware did until we fixed it in 1.2.) This workaround is in the application code, not Ecos itself, and so does not appear in the ecos-last-rhepl diff.

Peter
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on January 10, 2008, 11:55:39 AM
The Ecos diff from last-rhepl is on the CD that came with every Rio Karma. Subsequent firmware releases didn't include any new modifications to Ecos itself. I believe that the licensing conditions allow anyone with that CD to repost the diff (but check first!); I don't have a copy to hand myself any more.

Guess who's currently cursing they no longer have that CD anymore?

Quote
Firstly, the firmware is encrypted. I'm pretty sure that the bootrom will refuse to boot firmware images that haven't been encrypted with the correct key.

We have plenty of other targets where that's the case too - and we eventually surmounted those hurdles. I'm not saying that with a cocky swing in my step - we *may* not crack it - but it's certainly not foreign territory for us as a project - look at all the current PP502x targets we have which use the .mi4 firmware format (which is signed).

Quote
Secondly, datasheets on some of the chips used are hard to obtain without NDA. The Ipod Linux people have reverse-engineered some of the on-chip peripherals of the PP5002 and PP5020, but I don't know how different the PP5003 was.

We're hoping that the diffs (should we ever get hold of them) will help us out with the rest of the PP internals. We've managed to build on the work of the iPL guys and get a few more of the secrets out of the chips too - but it's slow ponderous work.

Quote
Thirdly, there is a very serious silicon bug in the cache on the PP5003. If you ever flush the cache (or a region of it), it can get into a state where the wrong cache line gets written randomly somewhere in external memory.

Thanks for the heads up - we'll bear it in mind ;)

Quote
Peter

/me wonders if Peter is someone else he met on his trip to Cambridge to visit Roger once upon a time...
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: jacoby on January 10, 2008, 01:22:10 PM
I have the CD, but looking through it I don't know what files on it would be useful to post.
I have plenty of webspace, should I just upload the whole thing?  I suppose that would be on shaky grounds license wise, but I really doubt that Rio would care all that much about a dead player's CD being available.

However, if going that route is not wanted, I will comply.

actually, if you dont like the whole CD being posted, please just edit out this link:
[Deleted] as per peter's comment below.

It is currently uploading but I need to go to work.  I should be done uploading around 2pm, eastern
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: pdh11 on January 10, 2008, 01:35:52 PM
Quote
I have the CD, but looking through it I don't know what files on it would be useful to post.

The ones you want should have "ecos" in the name, like maybe ecos.tar.gz and ecos-last-rhepl.diff. Don't upload the whole CD; not everything on that CD is under RHEPL and, while Rio may be defunct, that just means there's nobody left there except lawyers...

Peter
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: jacoby on January 10, 2008, 01:49:35 PM
I see nothing of the sort on the CD... maybe they stopped sending those files with the CD at some point?
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: linuxstb on January 11, 2008, 12:31:17 PM
The Ecos diff from last-rhepl is on the CD that came with every Rio Karma. Subsequent firmware releases didn't include any new modifications to Ecos itself. I believe that the licensing conditions allow anyone with that CD to repost the diff (but check first!); I don't have a copy to hand myself any more.

That's good to know - hopefully someone can track it down.

However, the firmware is still being distributed on rioaudio.com - shouldn't that website also be hosting a copy of the source diff, as per the RHEPL?  It's possible for someone to download the firmware from that website without ever having received the CD.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 17, 2008, 08:15:29 AM
krazykit is going to send me a slightly banged up Karma soon, so I can start tearing it apart and getting pics of the mainboard and components. But I feel that like my Dell DJ, this is going to end up in pieces in a hardware box I have... all in the name of Rockbox. ;)

If anyone has one fully working, intact Karma, PM me.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: space_ghost on January 23, 2008, 01:18:15 PM
hi there!
my beloved karma died some time ago (harddrive issues, srollwheel broken...) so i teared it apart and did a scan of the pcb.
you can find it here (http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3672/karmapcbsg1.jpg)

//edit: wrong link corrected//

i only scanned one side of the pcb as all the chips are located on that one side. on the back side there are only two buttons for volume control and the harddisk connector - the rest of the pcb is left free to provide space for the harddrive itself.

if you need anything else please let me know!

best regards,
spaceghost
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 23, 2008, 01:19:40 PM
With your kind permission, space_ghost, I'd like to post this to the wiki page for the Karma.

Hooray! 1000th post!
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: space_ghost on January 23, 2008, 01:23:06 PM
 :D that's perfectly fine for me!
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 30, 2008, 11:26:31 AM
GodEater, have you heard any word from the eCos discussion list yet?
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: GodEater on January 30, 2008, 11:49:28 AM
Nothing at all - I gave up.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: LambdaCalculus on January 31, 2008, 07:51:42 PM
Ah, crap. Back to the drawing board.

In the meantime, here's the output of lsusb -v on my laptop with the Karma attached:

Code: [Select]

Bus 005 Device 004: ID 045a:5210 SONICblue, Inc. Rio Karma Music Player
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceSubClass         0
  bDeviceProtocol         0
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x045a SONICblue, Inc.
  idProduct          0x5210 Rio Karma Music Player
  bcdDevice            1.01
  iManufacturer          51
  iProduct               72
  iSerial                55
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength           32
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0
    bmAttributes         0xc0
      Self Powered
    MaxPower                0mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           2
      bInterfaceClass         0 (Defined at Interface level)
      bInterfaceSubClass      0
      bInterfaceProtocol      0
      iInterface              0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x88  EP 8 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
        bInterval               0
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: Dave E on April 02, 2008, 06:04:38 PM
Hello all. I hope this idea hasn't died out yet. I'd love to get rock box on my karma.

I wish I had more time to help. All I can really do is email people and pester them into submission. I've tried emailing DNNA, to no avail. However, I emailed Ecoscentric, the commercial arm of eCos, and got a prompt response as below. I'm going to give Red Hat a try next in the hope that something comes of it. I'm not holding my breath though.

Cheers,
Dave.

Quote
Dave E wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I'm looking for information on the Rio Karma, and I gather that it
> used eCos from the RHEPL days. Does anybody there at ecoscentric
> recall receiving patches from the Karma development team while still
> at Redhat?
>
> In discussions online, an ex-Karma developer stated that they
> submitted their patches to eCos, but they're nowhere to be found
> online and don't appear to have been distributed with the Karma
> itself. There is also no mention of eCos at all in the Karma manuals
> etc. These would appear to be a violations of the license by Digital
> Networks North America (DNNA), who have been unresponsive to requests
> for information.
>
> Any help or pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
>

Hi Dave.

Unfortunately circumstances are against you. Your best chance of
acquiring the code is to politely persist with DNNA. Red Hat were under
no obligation to either publish the code online or make it available -
that is the responsibility of the authors - and I suspect the
contribution was lost within Red Hat after we left.

You could try and contact Red Hat who were the copyright holder and who
provided the license, but unfortunately I doubt you will get any
response or assistance from Red Hat in this regard as Red Hat no longer
have any interest in eCos. The current copyright holders, the FSF, will
be unable to help because this was all before their time.
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: ataraxia on April 10, 2008, 04:19:00 PM
I have a taken apart rio karma I'm willing to ship to anyone within the continental US.  The power button snapped off the PCB and I tried to take it apart and fix it.  I realized after some hours with a soldering iron that my fingers are not stable enough.  Since then I bought an e200 v1 and am incredibly happy with it as a replacement.

I'd just like it to go to someone whom could use it.  As a development platform it should still work perfectly.  It includes the dock also.  Email me off list.  
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: faichiu on February 04, 2009, 05:28:09 PM
can these picture of PCB be useful?

(http://images.imp3.net/bbs/month_0608/6_6W547G17axJn.jpg)
(http://images.imp3.net/bbs/month_0608/3_FfZ1aCDDEMjs.jpg)
(http://images.imp3.net/bbs/month_0608/4_q8dSGdGvcLQm.jpg)
(http://images.imp3.net/bbs/month_0608/5_EO1mXB8xruKF.jpg)
Title: Re: Rio Karma
Post by: saratoga on February 04, 2009, 07:55:01 PM
can these picture of PCB be useful?

Depends if they're better then the ones already on the wiki.  If so, feel free to upload them there.