Notices by Dirk Eibach (de@noc.social), page 3

@mntmn @pancake New blog post about my adventures trying to boot the MNT Reform2 with NXP LS1028A from eMMC. Involves fiddly hardware modifications, writing a disassembler for an exotic architecture and *gasp* lighting a LED. https://zeromips.org/posts/2023-11-24-emmcboot/

@mntmn Got it working. Only UBoot on eMMC, everything else coming from SATA now 🥳

@mntmn U-Boot can see my M2 SATA SSD. So the way eMMC UBoot to SATA /boot is open!

@mntmn seldomly been so happy to see a single LED light up. My hacked boot select now works for eMMC and I wrote a program for the LS1028A service processor that lights this LED. It is executed from eMMC! 🥳
Bonus from Freescale is that the GPIO register has big endian *bit* order which is a legacy from PowerPC. Took me a while to find this.

@mntmn Booting a LS1028A is kind of rocket science. It has a service processor, that is only responsible for preparing everything for the main processor to boot. You have uboot as a bootloader. You have the Trusted Firmware-A. Everything has to be adapted for your platform.
To answer just the simple question, what to do to switch from SD boot to emmc takes a whole day of reading. Still not 100% sure if I got everything right. Decided to add a bootsource jumper to the module to iterate faster 😭

@mntmn Jumper installed, firmware built. Now the 1.8V pad ripped off. Do you know another place nearby where to tap it?

@mntmn zero ohm gone

@mntmn Rework setup

@mntmn Getting setup for another surgery

@mntmn @pancake I did a writeup on my blog about my KVM background and how this lead to a free firmware flasher implementation for the MNT RHDP module using the Radare2 framework: https://zeromips.org/posts/2023-11-18-gprobe/

@imadnyc @mntmn where do you live? In Germany using it on a train does not seem to be a problem.

@imadnyc @mntmn guess I will never quite get the logic of our north American friends. Running around with a gun - no problem. Running around with some hacked up electronics - must be a terrorist. 🙄

@mntmn I did a writeup documenting my MNT Reform experiences and modifications in my Blog. https://zeromips.org/posts/2023-11-17-reform2/

@ruff @mntmn It is so cool, that I actually *can* modify the Reform2 to my very special needs. I can modify the housing and plan a custom bezel, because I have the 3D model. I can modify the charger, because I have the schematic. I can modify system controller and keyboard firmware because I have the sourcecode. This is just awesome. Open hardware power 💪

@ruff @mntmn I will use this as an EtherCAT master, so the modification is essential.

@mntmn looking pretty tidy now

@mntmn Seems my reform is running from a single batpack now 🥳

@mntmn modified charger showing a decent Vfbmax for a single battery pack

@mntmn hacking a battery bridge cable from your kindly provided material

@mntmn der Patient hat die OP gut überstanden. Leider hat der Lack beim Fräsen zwei Macken abbekommen, aber das ist ja rein äußerlich. Jetzt wird der Laderegler umgebaut 💪