From: stuart <stuart_at_xnet.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 09:59:06 -0500

Hi Joseph (everyone)...

I didn't mean to suggest porting the RockBox effort to the HipZip
StrongArm processor - hum, interesting though... What processor does
the RockBox use? And, yes, not only were Pocket Zips (a.k.a. 40MByte
Click Zips) unpopular but expensive (w.r.t. current flash memory prices)
and fragile!

Digging a bit more - I understand, as you found out, eCos isn't really
derived from linux but was a software operating system project from a
company that RedHat bought.

All that aside, what I really want to do is rip out the Click Zip drive
of a HipZip and either add "boat loads" of flash and keep the original
packaging or connect the HipZip guts to a hard drive (somewhere about
here I can start to hear people saying: "Just get an Archos and start
hacking!" Well, yes, but I have a bunch of HipZip carcases here just
begging to be hacked them selves!).

I am poking around the RockBox project because the HipZip and RockBox
use the same ATA-USB-Processor bridge chip, the IDS200! I figure there
should be enough similarities to get a HipZip up and running.

However, my biggest concern is that the HipZip firmware is "hard coded"
to expect a 40MByte storage device. Hence, my search for the eCos /
Dadio - SDK.

Physically, though, the project looks good as the Click Zip drive
appears to have been constructed for duel purposes. That is, it is in
the shape of a PCMCIA card and as easy to remove from the player as the
internal battery pack. Further, I speculate the I/O of the Click Zip
closely resembles that of a PCMCIA card. Which, in turn, closely
resembles both an ATA Hard Disk Drive interface as well as a Compact
Flash interface that is jumpered to work in the ATA mode.

Well, let me know if anyone has any suggestions, questions or experience
with this type of stuff. Or, if you think this is so far off topic -
let me know as well and I'll stop posting.

                        ...thanks, stuart_at_xnet.com



Joseph Jones wrote:
> I don't think the I-Jam or HipZip are realistic port targets. I don't
> think Pocket Zip disks were all that popular, and I-Jam couldn't seem to
> be able to make their mind up on whether they wanted to use MMC cards or
> CF in their players.
>
> Not to mention that these players are so old that the I-Jam and iObject
> websites don't even exist anymore :( As for Dadio SDK, I got very few
> hits on google when I searched for it (two pages). I did however find
> the eCos kernel by RedHat. Turns out that Dadio is not Linux. It's based
> on Redhat's own eCos kernel, which is open source... So unless RedHat
> had a seperate license for Interactive Objects, Dadio should be open
> source as well. But I find it quite likely that they did have a seperate
> license, since the eCos kernel doesn't appear to support any Pocket Zip
> readers.
>
> Joe
>
> stuart wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi...
>>
>> First off, thanks for the web site resource - don't know where I would
>> have gotten the specifications for the ISD200 ATA/USB chip otherwise.
>>
>> Off to some fun stuff...
>>
>> When I realized the HipZip used the same ATA/USB controller as the
>> RockBox I started wondering if the HipZip (a "defunked" mp3 player -
>> mostly because it had limited removable storage **) could control
>> large compact flash cards or even a hard drive.
>>
>> From inspection of the circuit... it looks like it could. But there
>> is always the problem that the embedded firmware (Dadio, a Linux
>> derivative I believe) is hard coded at 40MBytes.
>>
>> So I am looking, after finding some internet chatter about it, for the
>> Dadio SDK. So far it looks like it was talked about around March of
>> 2000 but never released.
>>
>> The Dadio / Linux firmware was supposed to be used on the HipZip and
>> the I-Jam mp3 players. I don't know if either of these are still on
>> the market. One encouraging note, the I-Jam players appear to use
>> compact flash cards!
>>
>> ...thanks
>>
>>
>> **HipZip players used a small (about a inch wide) 40MByte removable
>> disk. At $10 each, it wasn't long until flash cards passed them up in
>> terms of Bytes per dollars. Add to that, I have personally destroyed
>> at least 3 disks of my own (i.e. Don't stare at them to long or they
>> will fall apart).

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Received on 2004-06-11