Olympus m:robe MR-100

[roolku]

Lowlight,

are you still working on the MR-100? I tried to contact you by email if you would like to share your results. (got my hands on a device)

Cheers
  Roolku

[lowlight]

Several people have asked me, but I've been *really* busy with other things. I will try to sync what I have (my mr100 tree is ~6 months old) and commit it when I get a chance.

I've had been holding off commiting anything until I got the buttons working. I think I've got the init sequence, but don't see where to read the values.

As I've said all along...anyone can help by digging through the firmware disassemblies (the original bootloader is a good start).

[roolku]

Thank you for the update. I'm looking forward to your commit.

Cheers
  Roolku

[preet]

Is there a FAQ for the firmware disassembly thing you're talking about? What do you mean by the original bootloader? The original firmware that's on the Olympus site?

How do I 'disassemble' it? I'm guessing it's written in assembly? I don't mind sifting through code looking for something helpful but I need some general advice here... even if it's instructions for another player, anything I can apply to this project would be appreciated.

[Bagder]

I don't think there's a FAQ for disassembly, but we tend to just use arm-elf-objdump, as in:

 arm-elf-objdump -D --target binary -marm PP5022.mi4.bin

(assuming you have a decrypted mi4 file named like that!)

The BL files for most PP-targets seem to use a lot of Thumb mode code and then you'd do the same like this:

 arm-elf-objdump -D --target binary -marm -Mforce-thumb BL.rom

If you have the money, IDA Pro is a mighty capable disassembler, and there's also one available as source in the Rockbox source tree, said to be slightly nicer than the objdump shown here.

I'm guessing it's written in assembly?

No, the firmware is written in C and C++. And yes, reading ARM disassembly is a bit of a hefty thing that takes some getting used to, and I recommend you to get the ARM instructions manual to have next to you when you start this...

[preet]

I'm trying to work off ubuntu... I'm guessing I need GNUARM to disassemble those files. I found the BL and mi4 file for this player... (what did you mean by decrypted? Is it encrypted by default [ie is the one on the player hdd encrypted?]).

However I don't know how to install gnuarm on ubuntu...are any of you using this method? I could not find any instructions on installing GNUARM for linux (the sites I found were down)... Are most people here using gnuarm with linux, or am I heading down the wrong path? Maybe most people here are using cygwin?

[Bagder]

First. get the arm tool chain for Linux by running the tools/rockboxdev.sh script from the Rockbox source tree. It downloads, extracts, patches, builds and installs the necessary stuff!

Yes, the mi4 files are encrypted but we've already broken all that and mi4code[1] is the tool to use to decrypt or re-encrypt mi4 files.

I think we're slightly more people on Linux than cygwin, especially when we count the vmwares running linux.

[1] = http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/mi4.html

[cxamer]

I have had my m:robe mr-100 for about 2 years now, i barley use it because i find it pretty bad for navigating songs, and i would really like some support to play flac, i would really like to see rock box ported to this, is there anything that i can do to help?

[lowlight]

After a long wait, it's been committed SVN.

On the hardware side, still need to work on
1. touchpad
2. adc (battery)
3. dac (use WM8751 - it didn't compile without errors)
4. remote (I already have one)
5. anything else I have listed as todo in firmware/export/config-mrobe100.h

On the software side, I'll get the ui sim working soonish and then anyone can work on the keymap (I just copied the H10's keymap) and converting plugins.

[xiion]

is anyone still working on this project? id love to have my M:robe mr-100 run rockbox properly

[roolku]

is anyone still working on this project?

Yes and some progress has been made - you can play music now (if somewhat quietly). Keep an eye on the wiki http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/OlympusMR100Port#Status .

[xiion]

how exactly do i get it to work?
is there a how to guide on getting it to run properly, let alone at all?

[roolku]

Keep in mind that it is not really usable, due to the lack of button driver and that no pre-compiled binaries are available yet.

If you still want to go ahead, you need to compile rockbox as well as the bootloader following this guide:

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

There is more information here:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DocsIndex#For_Developers

Then follow the install instructions for the iriver H10:
http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-h10/rockbox-buildch2.html#x4-60002

(basically copy bootloader to the \system directory and extract rockbox zip to root).

[Febs]

As a reminder, the "POSTING IN THIS FORUM" sticky says the following:

Also, to be perfectly clear, please do not ask for tech support in this forum.  We will delete irrelevant posts asking for help fixing broken players, or installing development builds because they clutter up development threads (which really are intended for people doing development, or at least following development).  If your player does not have a rockbox subforum, thats because we do not yet provide support or assistance in installing Rockbox on it.

[roolku]

The RTC is now working on the m:robe 100. The hardware designer who selected the chip and designed the hook-up should be shot though.