IBM
I Got ANOTHER Intel Chatpad Prototype
I Got ANOTHER Intel Chatpad Prototype
#Intel #Chatpad #Prototype
“Tech Time Traveller”
Remember that crazy Intel Chatpad prototype I found on eBay? Well, after doing a video on that, a former Intel engineer named …
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I'm guessing the button clears the rom
An Intel product with a CPU not made by Intel. Interesting.
Prototype is like beta: its meaning depends who you ask, but most will agree it's something unfinished.
It's not a prototype, it's an engineering sample. Intel said so.
Such a neat deal kind of like apple emate
I wonder how the "it must be unfinished bare PCB-levels of early to count as a prototype" people must feel about those who use "beta" to refer to literally any point of a video game's development before the final build, even calling any kind of unused content "beta content".
Welp, I guess we can only prototype with one unit at a time. And we can't prototype with their cases, since they need to be exposed PCB
Still an interesting device that could have only existed like that in the 90s up to mid 2000s.
Wow I'm one of the 6 or 7 people that watched it.
Was it released to the public no not really so it still falls under prototype in my view, it's a version of a prototype that is slightly finished but of the not yet variety.
Hm… ima rapid fire on few guesses
Alt ctrl fn esc power at the same time
Ctrl fn c p power same time
Tab control fn power
Control fn spacebar
Those combinations with setup on the motherboard, its my best guess far as i see based on the keyboard
If you want to pander to the nit pickers, call it an "Engineering Sample." LOL.
I am impressed that the device at least managed to connect to the base station (even if nothing further happened).
I have not reviewed all of the comments, but is there an "easy" way to dump the ROM? Obviously desoldering the chip is not an option…
Atari Falcon 🙂 You should see my Desk Topper and External keyboard conversion videos.
Maybe press and hold power for ~20 seconds, either on power up or after it’s on?
The three wire cable is very likely a serial port for debugging. Use a meter to determine which of the three wires is ground, then use the other two for Transmit and Receive. They can only go two ways, and the wrong way won't cause any problems. I'd wager 9600 BPS, 8 bits, no parity. PuTTY is your friend.
Sorry, but I have to say it. Have you tried turning it off and on again? 😀
Cannot wait for that novel of yours to come out!
Well stands to reason there has to be at least one other chatpad, or who would you chat to?
Sometimes retailers could send a barcode back to the manufacturer for unsold obsolete stock.
prototype is just something that's in the pipeline before production. a prototype can basically be 1:1 as well, just like a beta of a software might turn out to not need any changes.
"Prototype" covers all ends of the development cycle, including pilot units. It only stops at consumer release models. People making claims otherwise don't really know how deep the production rabbit hole goes, or how late changes are often made to hardware.
I would love to help pulling off the firmware. Also sniffing around the jumpers and the three wire for serial debug output while trying to connect. Maybe building some demo software for it. Of course this would be a longer project than the 2 weeks you mentioned.
The wire go into the antenna through the hinge. Clever
That 3-wire cable that's soldered on looks like a serial connector. Hook it up and have a listen!
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The loose cable on the inside with 3 pins is potentially a serial cable might be able to connect to teraterm
The "random" wire, is likely a jtag or serial out, the latter being more likely. Using Putty, or any other TTY tool available to you, and a serial to USB adapter, it SHOULD give you more information on the device itself during bootup, and likely offer commands to skip past this pairing stage, assuming it has any software on it to begin with.
Nice looking device, would be a perfect terminal for my various Arduino trinkets etc. Just add a serial port, both true RS232 with +-12V signalling and a TTL version of the same.
Heck. anyone have a 3D printer – please…..
3 pin connector is 100% UART. it should be possible to get at least a boot log. It may give some more info or even a shell of some sort.
I bet 3 pin is UART TX/RX/GND
The thing is:
If it is waiting for software to be sent from the PC, you can theoretically send it anything you want.
You would have to get some other device that is working with the base station, and closely watch what it is doing. I mean on a hardware level.
If you can figure out how the base station sends the software, and how to package something for it to get sent, it should be possible.
But you will have to run the software on the PC with special tools, maybe inside a VM, to see what it is actually doing in the background.