workshop, reduced screen

[Renate]

Normally it would start saying, "You are only 6 taps away from developer!"

Hmm, about now I'd be looking for an internal UART on this thing.

There could be some secret gesture or password to enable USB but you'd never find it at random.

Do you have an update for this thing?
It's old, it should be easy to hack.
Or does it use an SD card for the system software (like Kobo did)?

[Renate]

Yeah, there's a Spanish YouTube about the UART on this.

It's clear enough, but you'll need a USB UART adapter.

[Renate]

Oh, this is not Android.
So, forget about ADB.

The UART can get you something to type to but it's going to take some looking to figure out what's wrong.

This came out in 2016.
The domain "bq.com" is up for sale.

[daniel bastida]

Originally Posted by Renate

Normally it would start saying, "You are only 6 taps away from developer!"

Hmm, about now I'd be looking for an internal UART on this thing.

There could be some secret gesture or password to enable USB but you'd never find it at random.

Do you have an update for this thing?
It's old, it should be easy to hack.
Or does it use an SD card for the system software (like Kobo did)?

No, it doesn't have an internal SD card.

AliExpress cable. I suppose this one might work.
It seems difficult to me.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by daniel bastida

It seems difficult to me.

Mmm, I think it will be difficult.
Getting it to talk to you is not hard.
Figuring out where the problem is might be.

Did you replace the screen yourself?
You're going to have to rip off the bezel, then replace the tape later.

You know, that's kind of an old device and it's not supported.
Do you know if the battery is any good?
That's another headache.

Both your old and new display are equally "dumb".
They can't say what they are.
So the display is not the problem.

Ha! I know what the problem is.
This puppy is NTX.
That means it relies on NTX HWConfig.
Somehow that got corrupted.

You should even be able to alter that in u-boot.
Certainly with mmc utilities, maybe it has hwconfig utilities too

Gosh! I wish somebody had a utility for dumping those configs.

C:\>ntxhwcfg hwcfg
0b  Version              2.7
0f  Size                 63
10  PCB                  E60QL0
11  KeyPad               NO_Key
12  AudioCodec           No
...
2f  DisplayResolution    1024x758
...
4e  GPU                  NC

Yeah, that USB UART should work fine.
Too bad that we have to wait a week for it to show up.
You're going to need some header pins because the cable is female.
Not these specifically, but whatever.