ZipIt Tech Details

ZipIt wireless IM device

• Discussion of ZipIt modification http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zipitwireless
• Details on how to flash new firmware into ZipIt http://aibohack.com/zipit/
• Info on adding MMC memory to ZipIt ZipIt_MMC
• large scan of main board
• really large scan of main board
• directory listing Media:ls-lR.txt slightly out of date
  • /bin/busybox appears static linked to uClibc
  • /sbin/iwconfig is static linked to uClibc
  • /usr/bin/Zipit is the main binary, static linked to glibc and likely more
• Made by Aeronix and imported
• GPL/LGPL sources are available or documented
  • Note: object file for Zipit binary is not available for re-linking so they are in violation of the LGPL license for glibc
  • http://www.zipitwireless.com/linux.html
• ZipIt_Peeks_&_Pokes

Hardware

• Cirrus EP7312
• 2M flash - MX 29LV160ATxBC-70
• 16M SDRAM - Hynix HY5V26D
• 320x240x4 LCD (grayscale)
• Agere WiFi chip - WL600114LY (basically "WL60011", a Wavelan Hermes-II)
• Wolfson Micro WM8751L Stereo DAC

amazon http://www.elkgrovewireless.com/zipit/zipit.jpg http://www.elkgrovewireless.com/zipit/

Source Code

• Zipit Wireless Messenger Release 1.00-1.12
• http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4.21.tar.bz2
  • patch-2.4.21-rmk1.bz2
  • http://www.zipitwireless.com/linux/patch-2.4.21-rmk1-zipit.gz
• http://ftp.sf.net/pcmcia-cs/pcmcia-cs-3.2.1.tar.gz
• http://www.agere.com/mobility/docs/wl_lkm_722_abg.tar.gz - Agere Wireless Driver
• http://www.zipitwireless.com/linux/patch-wl_lkm_abg_alfa2-zipit.gz - Aeronix Patch
• http://busybox.net/downloads/legacy/busybox-1.00-pre1.tar.bz2
• http://uclibc.org/downloads/old-releases/uClibc-0.9.15.tar.bz2
• http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/glibc-2.2.5.tar.gz
• http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/wireless_tools.26.tar.gz
• Note: as stated above the LGPL license requires that the object file for the Zipit binary be made available for re-linking with glibc and this has not happened.

Serial Port Access

• ground on GND
• debug on DBG
• RxD1 on left side of R121
• RxD2 on right side of R122
• TxD2 on unlabeled point near midpoint from R42 and R53
• TxD1 is not available
• you will need a level shifter circuit with something like the MAX233A or MAX233 to convert to to rs232 signal levels.

How to find the Firmware Version

<to be supplied>

What's in ROM

From Zipit Pet's post on the subscriber only Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zipitwireless

Updated to 1.16 version

The ZipIt device has 2MB or Flash ROM and 16MB of RAM

The Flash ROM contains a small boot loader, a zImage compressed Linux kernel and gzip compressed ramdisk. These get expanded to RAM when the device boots. At the end of the Flash ROM is a small area where settings are saved (eg: passwords, SSIDs etc).

Flash ROM Memory Map: (version 1.16)

00000000	boot loader (no GPL source)
00002000	start of kernel zImage compressed bootloader
000045B0+-	start of gzipped Linux data (inside zImage)
00090000	start of gzipped Linux ramdisk image (over 4MB expanded)
001F0000	Flash stored properties -- "Aer Media Properties"
001FFFFF	end of Flash ROM (2MB)

Linux

The linux kernel build string is:

Linux version 2.4.21-rmk1 (root@sambaman) (gcc version 3.2) #15 Wed Apr 21 16:01:33 UTC 2004

Most components were built a long time ago (2002 or 2003). Not customized for the ZipIt.

in /lib/modules are a few dynamic loaded modules:

• audiodrv.o [audio, not GPL],
• wlags49_h25_cs.o [[[WiFi]], GPL]

http://www.agere.com/mobility/wireless_lan_drivers.html

init script

The brief init script, /sbin/init

[a bunch of echo statements]
/bin/mount /proc
/sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1
insmod /lib/modules/audiodrv.o

cd /usr/bin
/bin/ash &
./Zipit
/bin/ash

ramdisk - custom app "Zipit"

The /usr/bin/Zipit app is ~1.6MB program that has all the goodies in it. It uses a number of support files for the user interface

• Sounds are in standard WAV format (/usr/bin/Sounds)
• Images are in standard BMP format (/usr/bin/GUI)
• The user interface is stored in .SDF data files for the different pages (/usr/bin/SDFs) Looks like a proprietary format
• The string "insmod /lib/modules/wlags49_h25.o" is buried inside /usr/bin/Zipit

Release history

A URL for a checking/getting a release looks like:

http://www.zipitwireless.net/~zippy/90300089.txt <- with different numbers on the end.

Tim Riker only has partial info, but wishes we kept track so here's a start:

version	filename	date	md5	comments
1.99	bootrom.9IU7Y6TDK.bin	20041015	4776E21028E8BF6B6817D8CACC8FA360	00000000.txt
1.99	bootrom.4D02IZ8E.bin	20050214	934A1B789ACE66F6B24116964C3C604B	00000000.txt
t2.1.0	bootrom.t2.1.0.bin	?	?	?
t2.1.01	bootrom.t2.1.01.bin	?	?	?
t2.1.04	bootrom.t2.1.04.bin	?	?	?
t2.1.05	bootrom.t2.1.05.bin	?	?	?
t2.1.06	bootrom.t2.1.06.bin	?	?	?
t2.1.08	bootrom.t2.1.08.bin	?	?	?
1.0	bootrom.t3.1.0.bin	?	?	?
1.03	bootrom.t3.1.03.bin	?	?	?
1.04	bootrom.t3.1.04.bin	?	?	?
1.05	bootrom.t3.1.05.bin	?	?	?
1.06	bootrom.t3.1.06.bin	?	?	?
1.08	bootrom.t3.1.08.bin	20041224	AB2178653406C18908E20FA40E15B391	?
1.12	bootrom.P4A85DK4.bin	20050111	7AFF3A1AD8B036C95FAFCD07E64F6171	?
1.16	bootrom.4D02IZ8E.bin	20050214	934A1B789ACE66F6B24116964C3C604B	Yahoo messenger, shoutout
1.21	bootrom.4KD8G8NA.bin	20050321	609BDD07C8169305A2550A3010D658F2	more Yahoo fixes
1.22	bootrom.S73HS0O1.bin	20050825	9146A4C0D370EB0524838E7B06AED343	?