NEC usb hack for mediator

[mechy]

Just reprogrammed the eproms on a few different pci USB cards last night with the NEC chipsets. Thanks goes out to the guy who posted about how to do this.
My process goes something like this- Desolder the eprom,stick it in a  soic adapter and that goes into my eprom burner,load some edited eprom  code, shoot it to the eprom,remove it,solder it back on the  board.Nothing too hard just takes time.
 Seem to work fine in my A4000 with 5v Mediator. i did a 3 port and 5  port.Tested keyboards,memsticks,transcend card reader,some windows usb  cam(unrecognized)and the sony camera.
The green usb card has a 3.3/5v jumper onboard(seems to run in either  position in my 5v mediator with no bad effects). the black card has no  voltage jumper.I tested these about 1 hour.
all ports seem to work fine. This was under workbench 3.9 with poseidon  4.4 (thanks chris!) ,spider.device v3.21.My config is  csppc,radeon,sb128,100Mbit ethernet.

If anyone who doesn't have the capability to do these themselves needs  one i can probabaly offer the 5 port for $15-20 ready to go if anyone is  interested but alot of you can do it cheaper i'm sure.I haven't tried  these in the newer 1200 3.3v mediators,but no reason for them not to  work work.
Don't be surprised if elbox pulls some change in the next drivers update though.
-Mech-

EDIT:
Mediator Driver install: -how i did it-
BACKUP YOUR INSTALL FIRST! you have been warned.
Simply make a drawer called usbhardware in devs: if you don't have this from a previous mediator install.

Copy the spider.device to the above drawer - it must be 3.21 (using anything earlier might have bad effects!?!?!)

Get Poseidon 4.4 (thank chris and your lucky stars for this-maybe buy him something on his wish list).

install Poseidon 4.4 as normal,but don't select ANY of the hardware driver devices(no deneb,no subway etc -deselect all)

go thru the rest of poseidon as normal installing classes and such.

Reboot

Start trident (it should be in sys:Prefs) and goto the "devices" window (it will be empty)

open a cli and enter:
AddUSBHardware Devs:USBHardware/spider.device 2
AddUSBHardware Devs:USBHardware/spider.device 0
AddUSBHardware Devs:USBHardware/spider.device 1

you should see stuff pop up in the trident devices window as you enter and hit return on each of the above in cli.

hit the save at the bottom of the trident window and you should be ready to go!

[mechy]

more pix...

[mechy]

and the 5 port board:

[mechy]

What does this do? Correct for a bug in a driver, or

Is this Amiga/Mediator specific, or for any platform? Does it break the card for any platforms?

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

[mechy]

Great :-)

So finally elbox PCI bus works as every PCI bus should - working with ALL (USB) PCI cards regardless of "manufacturer" - after all, it's probably just a single number (manufacturer ID) (well, it's pretty obvious Elbox didn't manufacture those USB boards...)

So how long until Elbox comes up with an "important security fix for all Mediator users"? :-D

Sure, they might not be able to "prevent everything", but the first post proves, they aren't f.ex. checking for "correct" amount of USB ports (whatever happened to be on those they bought to resell at huge profit). There are likely LOTS of similar things the driver can check, but didn't yet, as there was no need to (as this kind of hacks weren't at least too public until now)

-EDIT-
I'm not a Mediator owner myself, but feel happy for all Mediator users, who finally can use USB card from ANY manufacturer (as long as the drivers are compatible), just like PCI was meant to be.

I wouldn't say all cards work, i stuck with the NEC chipset cards.. I would doubt it would work with other usb cards without the nec chipset but feel free to prove me wrong :razz: .
There is no way to be sure on this stuff, they could change a driver and break it. In theory if you stick with poseidon 4.4 and don't upgrade to anything new they put out it should keep working indefinately.

We should of had access to these cheap cards from day one.

mech

[mechy]

I understand funding the driver development, but ouch, $70 markup for 9 years is not cool.  And if you have two mediators?  You paid $140 for drivers!  That's more than most whole OS's.

Good hack job mech!

Edit: I forgot, we're still paying for Mediator CD's on top of that...Isn't THAT supposed to be funding driver development? Yeah, I have NO problems with this little trick.  Bravo.

Thanks, i am not the originator of this hack,but its a good one! i have 20 cards coming the beginning of the week and i will mod them and stick them on the shopping cart.
I didn't really do any of this to stab elbox in the eye or anything,because the mediator is damned fine hardware(even if it doesn't do proper DMA),i mean mines been running for 10 years 24/7 i think now.They have stood the test of time. But the thing with the spider was wrong and advertising stuff that is not for sale etc.. I still want the mpeg card drivers! thats one thing i was really looking forward to.

[mechy]

I do love my Mediator 1200 (though it sees little action recently). I was thinking though - if all Elbox did was change the vendor ID, and with this hack the same card is now "spoofing" as an Elbox card, surely there can't be a way to write a driver that will stop them working since they appear identical from a software perspective? Unless there's some other field which they modified as well...

 In theory your right, if they do change the driver,it breaks their own cards.. but there may be other places in the nec rom to check and do something. They know the hardware in and out so you never can tell be sure.they are probabaly analyzing it bit for bit now to find a way to cripple it
keeping spider.device 3.21 is the best thing to do.

LOL
 Mech

[mechy]

@mechy
You might want to check your LDO too, depending on the cards you use.

Finally someone understood my signature.

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.
-----------------------------------------
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.
-----------------------------------------------

the cards i'm using have both notches,so i believe them to be universal.

mech

[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

[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.

[mechy]

Belkin F5U220 (REV 6 works,REV3 does not)

Did the eprom hack on 2 of the belkins, one was a revision 3(which didnt  work for me) and the other is revision 6 which worked fine

they both use the same D720101GJ chipset but the differences are

rev3: L1085D voltage regulator,48Mhz 4 pin square oscillator and a few more caps.

rev6: MT1117 voltage regulator and a 2 pin 30mhz crystal.

some misc resistors and capacitors different between the two.

the rev 6 seems to work flawless. The rev 3 caused crashes and reboots  any time i plugged anything in. I don't know if its a simple voltage  regulator difference or the differences in the cards clocking etc.The  color of the cards are actually barely a shade of blue difference- My  camera flash made them look drastically different.
Here are some pictures:
DSC00057.jpg
DSC00059.jpg

[mechy]

download the poseidon archive at http://www.platon42.de/poseidon.html
Should give you a idea of what works. most common stuff works.
USB works pretty well on amiga. i've been using it a long time.
Its too bad the deneb is out of production.
You should know that some usb devices won't be available at boot time since the spider cards have no flashmem to store the usb stack. You can do this on the deneb though.

Mech

[mechy]

MORE USB CARDS UP FOR SALE: $20 shipped in the USA,$25 Overseas.

I have made up 18 more of these usb cards that works with spider.device 3.21. if anyone wants one PM me.

going cheap!

@slaapliedje Yes they just edited the archive,changed the installer so it now does not install the spider.device and its not included of course.. so ridiculous.:crazy:


mech

[mechy]

Why? Because they don't like being ripped off?

They aren't being ripped off. i am just playing their game,except releasing the cards for a price they should cost.They simply don't like getting their own medicine back.
they have ripped amiga users off since the spider was released.
for the record i like the mediator,even if it does not do DMA it does work and is reliable.
Do you forget the years they sold spider cards with no available updated stack?
The overpriced piece of s*** excuse for a $30 chinese mediator pro tower for a4000 they sold me which cost a fortune and the rip off NEC usb card are a different story. bad business is bad business.Its things like this that drive amiga users away.
The whole point of the mediator was cheap pci cards was it not?

mech

[mechy]

Did you pay for the driver development cost? Do you offer support? Do you handle warranty repairs? Do you have a business with employees to pay?

Lets see here, some simple math. Elbox has been selling the overpriced spider cards for $91 for at least what?..10 years? we can safely assume they sold maybe 200 in that time.. so, 200 cards X $91 is approx $18200. hmm i'd say they made their dev cost back and then some and thats ONLY the spider.Even if its only 100 cards, that would be $9100. fair price for a driver? If anyone has trouble with my card,i will replace it free as long as i am alive.How can i do that you ask? Easy,the cost of the cards i put out start around $4-5.
Oh,and yes i have a business.

What do you think the price they should cost is? $20? Should Elbox be operating a charity?

They wouldn't be in this market if they couldn't make money now would they. Charging $91 for a usb card thats under $10 in even small quantity is certainly not charity.

Why do people complain about a $70 markup on the Spider, but have no problem with the Subway selling for $120? Or $200 for the DENEB? How much do you think they cost to make?

Who says we have no problem with it,the deneb probabaly was over priced(we don't know since we have no baseline on mfg cost. The subway/Deneb is custom hardware built in small quantity,not a generic off the shelf pci card which millions were made.
 Don't you understand this?. On the other hand we know on the nec card..People bought the deneb because they were all that was available with a proper updated usb stack i suspect-and they too are a damn fine card. I guess you don't mind paying a 700% markup for a spider? if not then boy, do i have a deal on a bridge for you!.. normal markup is maybe 300% at most in business but thats not a hard fast rule..

Nobody was forcing anyone to buy them. If the card didn't work as advertised, then people should return them for a refund.

erm,yea sounds normal. Was there a point here?

What? Overpriced Amiga hardware? What an outrage!

More drivel ignored..

Driving developers away doesn't attract users.

I don't drive them anywhere,but always happy to if they need a lift somewhere.  Developers are driven away because the amiga people are split a half a dozen ways,so they don't want to gamble on any of the 6 tangents probabaly.  

Feel free to write your own drivers, and charge whatever you want for them or give them away for free.

Golly gee, Having your permission makes it all worth while THANKS!:rofl:

Does the elbox lawyer have anymore questions or are you just a employee there?

Oh and if you need a usb card just let me know,it will cost you 91 though, i don't want to put you in a position that might make you feel you underpaid me since you prefer the 700% markup.

Mech