NEC usb hack for mediator

[amiga1084]

Hello All,

I really wish I knew about this hack before I bought one of those expensive Spider Cards from ElBox. Well done, shame on you ElBox!

Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent

[Ratte]

Isnt it easier to modify the driver?
The mediator-pci-api has only one function to read the vendorid.
Remove it .. the code itself must snoop for a classid.
This part of the code should work without vendorid-check.

[Jupp3]

Isnt it easier to modify the driver?
The mediator-pci-api has only one function to read the vendorid.
Remove it .. the code itself must snoop for a classid.
This part of the code should work without vendorid-check.

That's assuming it wasn't "protected" in any way. Some years back, doing that would have nuked your RDB!

Nowadays that code is (claimed to be) removed from the binary - or at least any outsider hasn't found it yet.

Anyway, regardless of whether or not it's there, I'm pretty sure it still has some other protections againist 3rd party patches. Of course there are likely ways around them.

[buzz]

I'm not a lawyer or the police.

if you were, you should go after elbox for their illegal activities!

[mechy]

The only thing to watch out for is that this probably breaks the DMCA in America and EUCD in every country in the European Union. It may also fall foul of local reverse engineering laws.
It will also affect your contract with Elbox for running the software.
 
I'm not a lawyer or the police.

Well if that is true, isnt elbox guilty of this? i mean they are the ones who took a nec card and changed the vendor id to their own.

mech

[Bamiga2002]

Brick vs. brick situation then, both will stay undamaged if no high-speed collision take place and cause a pile of ceramic pieces :swords:

[mongo]

Well if that is true, isnt elbox guilty of this? i mean they are the ones who took a nec card and changed the vendor id to their own.

mech

They didn't do it for the purpose of circumventing the protection in the driver.

[Bamiga2002]

They didn't do it for the purpose of circumventing the protection in the driver.

Yes but they seem to have made it to charge people for overpriced products.

[mongo]

Yes but they seem to have made it to charge people for overpriced products.

Overpriced products aren't illegal.

Besides, the Spider is the cheapest USB adapter available for the Amiga.

http://shop.elbox.com/cgibin/shop?info=705S20

[mechy]

They didn't do it for the purpose of circumventing the protection in the driver.

This hack on the hardware doesn't circumvent their driver, it complies with it.
elbox did not manufacture a usb card. they took a generic nec usb card, and changed the vendor id in it. this hack does the same thing.

[mongo]

This hack on the hardware doesn't circumvent their driver, it complies with it.

Did I say it circumvents their driver? No. I said it circumvents the protection in the driver.

[_ThEcRoW]

Thanks for the tip. Will be of value when someday put the tower
again up and running.

[kolla]

This is like 10 years late though.

[billt]

The story goes basically like this: elbox took a $5 usb card with nec chipset,modified the eprom on it to have their vendor id,and then coded the driver to not work with a cheap card so they could gouge the amiga ppl $90 for a $5 card.

this hack changes the generic cheap NEC card's eprom  to their vendor id so it works with the Mediator.

this is a PCI card and can only be used in the mediator. i have no idea if this works in anything other than the amiga/mediator.

mech

Ah, I see. I assume this makes the USB card not work on PCs anymore.

I can understand the desire to recoup development expense of drivers. We considered how to make money on Radeon drivers once upon a time, including packaging with cards and maybe doing something in ROM. I would not have been happy with that much of a markup, even considering how pointlessly small the market is. In the end, someone bought me dinner and a Prometheus card, and that's what I got out of my small contribution. I wish I'd had more time to get things further than where that driver got. :/

But that is a big markup, and the main point of a PCI bus into our Amigas is to get those cheap PCI cards to do things with, rather than spending Amiga price money for Zorro cards. If the PCI card ends up as expensive as a Zorro equivalent, people begin wondering why bother with PCI. Too high a price compared to PC stuff invalidates the reason for PCI in Amigas. At the same time, no drivers also invalidates the reason to get PCI, so you need to motivate someone to make drivers.

It's a tough world. And in our Amiga portion of it, things can be frustrating for users and developers alike. I'm just happy someone tries.

I have a Mediator that I've never used. The whole lack of time problem has my A3000 desktop partway along to a tower case, but not far enough to use it. Been that way for a few years now. So I don't have experience with driver situation yet. I wish I had someplace to work on stuff and use Amigas...

[Hizoap]

Ah, I see. I assume this makes the USB card not work on PCs anymore.

No, it will work in a pc too. I had no problems in pci 2.2

Readout from using finalwire, ebay usb on the left - elbox usb on the right.

[Hizoap]

I ran all these cards for a good while with the ports loaded(1hr+). the 3 port card has a ldo regulator and a jumper for 3.3/5v  i ran the card at 5v on the 3.3 setting(torture testing),it makes me think the chipsets are 5v tolerant,because i saw no i'll effects.The 5 port card has no regulator to speak of but it too ran flawless for over a hour loaded.My mediator does not have a 3.3v hack.

the 2- 5 port cards i have are going to friends for stress testing,and i won't have more till the beginning of the week. by then multiple people have tested them and if theres a problem to be found it should surface. but i am confident they work well.
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From wiki-take it for what its worth:

Card voltage and keying

 
 
 
 Typical PCI cards have either one or two key notches, depending on  their signaling voltage. Cards requiring 3.3 volts have a notch 56.21 mm  from the card backplate; those requiring 5 volts have a notch 104.47 mm  from the backplate. "Universal cards" accepting either voltage have  both key notches. This allows cards to be fitted only into slots with a  voltage they support.
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the cards i'm using have both notches,so i believe them to be universal.

mech

The nec 720101 has 3.3 V power supply, PCI signal pins have 5 V tolerant circuit.