[ale] Zapmedia Zapstation

Sun Aug 26 12:16:00 EDT 2007

Having a neuron fire on this (It's been 6 years or so), stage 1 was
bios, stage 2 was core OS and stage 3 was application launching. If your
system is not getting past stage on, the board is likely bad. As the
board is a standard size (I think), you should be able to swap it out
for a working board. Back panel will be an issue as well as the front
LCD (the original was serial line stuff and very specific to the board
and the LCD panel itself. I didn't work at all on the LCD panel so I
have no info at all on it.).

On Sun, 2007-08-26 at 02:22 -0400, Jay Finch wrote:
> I actually was one of the QA Testers for the Zapstation back in the
> day (before I was laid off) - I seem to recall a bug in the kernel
> loading process, but I am dredging my memory and not coming up with
> more than that.
> 
> Michael Hirsch & James would really be your best resources on this,
> sadly.  I wish I could contribute more, but alas that was many years
> (and 2 jobs) ago.
> 
> Sorry, and best of luck!  I loved the Zapstation and only wish I could
> have gotten one of my own when I was laid off -- It was a great
> device, imnsho. :)
> 
> Cheers!
> Jay
> 
> aaron wrote: 
> > I believe Michael Hirsch still lurks on the list; I've CC'd this
> > to the last known good address I had for him as well.
> > 
> > Like James Kinney, he worked on code for the product. I know
> > he was actively trying to get the code released as full OSS as
> > recently as 2 years ago. He may be able to offer some advice
> > if this hits his radar.
> > 
> > peace
> > aaron
> > 
> > On Friday 24 August 2007 20:00, Brian Pitts wrote:
> >   
> > > James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > >     
> > > > Dead and gone with the dot com busts. If you hang a CD off the internal
> > > > IDE connector you should be able to boot and load an OS (Linux only -
> > > > please :)
> > > >       
> > > It has two ide channels, one with a black connector and one with a blue 
> > > connector. When I got it, the hard drive was connected to the blue 
> > > connector and the dvd drive was connected to the black connector. I 
> > > placed an Ubuntu 6.06 cd in the dvd drive and got the the three 
> > > behaviors listed below.
> > > 
> > > 1) The monitor displays "Loading stage 1 of 3" and the lcd displays 
> > > "please wait starting up." The box then restarts and this happens again. 
> > > After the second time, the monitor goes black except for a flashing 
> > > cursor in the lower left. This occurs with if the hard drive is 
> > > connected to the blue ide channel, i.e.
> > > 
> > > a) blue: hdd, black: dvd
> > > b) blue: hdd, black: n/a
> > > 
> > > 2) The monitor displays "Loading stage 1 of 3" and the lcd displays 
> > > "please wait starting up." The box then restarts and this happens again, 
> > > and again, and again, etc. This occurs if nothing is connected to the 
> > > blue ide channel, i.e.
> > > 
> > > c) blue: n/a, black: dvd
> > > d) blue: n/a, black: hdd
> > > e) blue: n/a, black: n/a
> > > 
> > > 3) The monitor displays "Loading stage 1 of 3" and the lcd displays 
> > > "please wait starting up." The lcd then displays "power down your 
> > > zapstation" and the monitor displays a blinking cursor in the upper 
> > > left. This occurs if the dvd drive is connected to the blue ide channel, 
> > > i.e.
> > > 
> > > f) blue: dvd, black:hdd
> > > g) blue: dvd, black n/a
> > > 
> > > Behavior #3 doesn't change if the drive is empty or has a different 
> > > bootable cd. I've also tried booting from usb with no luck.
> > > 
> > > I suppose my next step is to pull the drives out and test them in 
> > > another system. Also, I'm worried that it might not recognize my usb 
> > > keyboard, making my hit random keys and hope for BIOS setup attempts 
> > > worthless, but since there are no ps/2 ports...
> > > 
> > >     
> > > > and make a multi-media box yourself with some MP3 jukebox code
> > > > from freshmeat.
> > > >       
> > > That's my thought as well. If nothing else, I'm glad to have the case to 
> > > stick another mini/micro motherboard in.
> > > 
> > >     
> > > > The built-in modem is/was a cheap hunk of crap that even
> > > > with the custom driver was junk at best (1+MB kernel driver that crashed
> > > > the system on unload - I did NOT write it just had to code around it).
> > > >       
> > > To think that only 6 years ago geeks actually had phone lines... I'm 
> > > going to try to add a wireless card to the one pci slot, but I don't 
> > > think the motherboard layout will make this easy.
> > > 
> > > -Brian
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Ale mailing list
> > > Ale at ale.org
> > > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > > 
> > >     
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >   
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC        
770-493-8244                    
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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