SanDisk Sansa m200 series (v1)

[travishayes89]

I don't know if it'd be possible to port RockBox to a SanDisk sans m240, but it'd be cool.

I do own one, but know nothing about the internal components, and because I just bought mine, I don't want to go ripping it up. I can tell you about what I know about it.

Specs:
1.0 GB (actually 1 billion bytes)
FM Radio tuner
Built In Microphone
Monochrome display

8 buttons (play-pause-up, repeat-down, back, forward, select, vol up, vol down, menu-power)

And a hold switch.

Well, I'll google for info and get more submitted here.

[Bagder]

1.0 GB (actually 1 million bytes)

That has got to be the smallest gigabyte ever seen...

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[travishayes89]

ahh, it's natural.

Crap, now I know why you did that. I made a typo: the Gigabyte according to Sansa is 1 billion bytes, not 1 million.  

I found this on the "Anything but iPod" forums

I cracked my M250 open to see what hardware is used:

Main processor/"System on Chip" (SOC): Telechips TCC 770
www.telechips.com

Couldn't get any detailed info, their website requires a logon just to see the datasheet. Possibly because they are in the process of being sued by SigmaTel for patent infringement. I emailed asking how to get a software developer's kit, but don't expect an answer. They are not set up to sell product into the USA. Anyone have a friend in Hong Kong that would front for me in getting one ?
Anyway, here's the info I COULD find:


TCC77x Series are system LSI for digital audio player based on the ARM946E-S, ARM'sproprietary 32-bit RISC CPU core.

it can decode and encode MP3 or other types of audio/voice compression/ decompression standards by software based architechure. The on-chip USB 2.0 compliant controller enables the data transmission between a personal computer and storage device such as NAND flash, HDD, SD,MMC etc.

Applications

Portable MP3 player (WMDRM10)
Mobile MP3 phone
Juke Box (Audio & Photo)
Portable MP3 Karaoke
Digital Internet Radio Server
Electronic Dictionary
Personal Multimedia Player (Audio/Image/Video)
Multimedia Storage Device


SDK

Provides Reference Solution including H/W and S/W
Provides World-first proven JANUS DRM(WMDRM 10 - PD) Solution
Supports various Audio & Video codec
MP3 decoding/encoding
WMA decoding/encoding
OGG decoding
ADPCM decoding/encoding
JPEG decoding
MPEG4-SP decoding
Supports MSC (Mass Storage Class) & MTP (Media Transfer Protocol)
Supports Meta-data Browsing

Features

ARM946E-S CPU core (4KB cache, up to 120MHz), 0.13um process
- Core : 1.1V ~ 1.3V, I/O : 1.8V ~ 3.3V
4K bytes of internal boot ROM with various boot procedure (NAND, UART, USB, EHI) and security
64K bytes of internal SRAM for general usage
4K bytes of data TCM (Tightly Coupled Memory) for fast data access
On-chip peripherals
- USB2.0 Device / USB1.1 Host
- ECC generator for SLC and MLC NAND Flash
- General purpose 8 channel 10-bit ADC
- RTC (Real Time Clock) for battery backup
- EHI (External Host Interface) for parallel host interface
Dedicated Memory Interfaces: SD ,MMC, SLC / MLC NAND Flash , IDE I/F for HDD
Embedded 8Mbit Nor Flash ,16Mbit SDRAM, High Performance Audio Codec Options


Besides the Telechips part, here are the other main chunks of silicon:

TI TLV320AIC23B Stereo codec and headphone amp (not sure why this is needed, as the telechips supposedly has the codec built in? Maybe just for the headphone amp)

ESMT M12S16161A 1M X 16 DRAM

Flash is Samsung... I didn't bother with the chip IDs

Philips TEA5767 FM radio

and a couple I was unable to track down from the markings:

59TI
AIP

and


AZ-76
VOB

..... and, yes, I got it back together and working perfectly

[travishayes89]

I'm just wondering though, is there any program out there like ipodpatcher that can read the partition table of a device and process it?

[Bagder]

If the unit is a UMS one, you can simply dd from Linux, and use fdisk -l to get to know about the partitions.

[travishayes89]

One thing i've noticed, is that when i plug mine into a Ubuntu machine that I have, the "Music" folder disappears.

It shows up under MTP mode in WinXp but not MSC, something with the way Windows writes it?

[Mad Cow]

Maybe that folder is hidden like alot of newer players.

[travishayes89]

No, cause when in MTP and using Windows Explorer, I can access it cleanly.

Maybe MTP has some sort of encryption on it?

[Llorean]

MTP doesn't show the actual filetree. It shows whatever the firmware wants to show you, independent of whether it's hidden or not. It's still entirely possible for the file to be hidden in MSC mode, and not hidden in MTP mode. In fact, completely different sets of folders are visible on the e200 series depending on which mode you're in, but you can find the hidden ones if you're in MSC.

[travishayes89]

How, DOS?

[Llorean]

Just telling it to show hidden files and folders...

[travishayes89]

I have that setting set in Explorer, but it still doesn't. Maybe I'll try to find that on Ubuntu Linux. Wish me luck!

[travishayes89]

I actually need a ".rom" decompiler, any help here?

[dan_a]

Try setting up a Rockbox development environment and then doing:
arm-elf-objdump -D -m arm -b binary firmware.rom | more
where firmware.rom is the name of the .rom file

[Bagder]

I just wanted to point out that we have an excellent guide on how to start on a new Rockbox port:

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