Updates

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 00:00:00 0000

I can’t believe it’s been two months since I last posted here. Much has happened on this project and, although I don’t have time to write in detail about these things now, I wanted to give you a brief overview. Warning: Expect Exclamation Marks.

A Co-Conspirator Has Been Found!

Karl happened to be working on a Psion SSD project at the same time as me and asked me if I wanted to collaborate. I was apprehensive at first - us techies can be quite possessive of our projects at times - but it’s been working brilliantly. We’re approaching the SSD challenge from two different angles, which has actually helped in analysing the SIBO platform. So if I refer to “we” rather than “I”, you know I’m talking about Karl and me.

SIBO Serial Protocol Cracked!

I’ve finally managed to get a version of my SIBO-SP decoder released on GitHub. You’ll need a copy of PulseView and the sigrok libraries to use them. I’ll go into more detail about it in a later post, but I will say thank you to Karl for pointing out that the SIBO-SP data payload is sent LSB first instead of the usual MSB. This is implied in the HDK but not actually explained. Once I’d reversed the bits, suddenly things started to fall into place.

The decoder: https://github.com/thelastpsion/libsigrokdecode

Sample files: https://github.com/thelastpsion/sibo-sigrok-sessions

RAM SSDs Use FAT16!

This is so important, as it makes writing libraries and interfacing with an SD card so much easier. The ROM and Flash SSDs, however, use a different format that Karl is in the process of cracking.

New Software!

Karl and I have been talking about writing new software for the SIBO platform, especially RPG, platform and text adventure games. We’re putting together a Trello board of ideas. We welcome suggestions, but not too many - we’ve got plenty to keep us occupied right now!

I got a 3mx!

I found an upgrade. It was dirt cheap. You are allowed to be jealous.

This basically means I have been able to use my old “production” 3c as my main test device. I’ll still be using the 3a to check compatibility and also because it has the old-style SIBO serial port.

I got an MC-400!

Possibly the best laptop in the world, and yet is the most useless given that it’s practically impossible to get software for it. But I like the idea of trying to get modern software and SSDs running on it, maybe even running a newer version of EPOC16 on it. I’ll do a full teardown and review at some point in the future, but for now my focus is the Series 3 range.

There’s a lot more to cover, but all in good time. For now, just know that if you’ve got an old SIBO machine, chances are we’re going to be building something that’s very 21st century for you.