PRS-500 Reader internals

[igorsk]

How do you link it?

[gseryakov]

Originally Posted by geekraver

Aargh. I'm finally at the point where I'm trying to build my C shim program, and I get:

fatal error LNK1107: invalid or corrupt file: cannot read at 0x280 c:\Program Files\Sony\CONNECT Reader\Data\bin\ebookusb.dll 1

What you are doing? Could you show the command line for link? Dll is not supposed to be red during linking. It is DINAMIC link library. You must be using the dll instead of export library which you don't have.

How to produce export lib: create a fake dll in VS/C++ with the same name and with the same set of exported functions (at least the prototypes (names and parameters) and ordinals of the used exports should be the same), the build process will give you the export lib.

[igorsk]

There's a simpler way:
1) run "dumpbin /exports ebookusb.dll /out:ebookusb.def"
2) Edit ebookusb.def to look like following:

LIBRARY ebookusb.dll
EXPORTS
  _CheckBlock@0
  _UsbBeginEnd@4
  _UsbBuffFree@4
...etc

3) run "lib /def:ebookusb.def"
4) use ebookusb.lib for linking.

[gseryakov]

Originally Posted by igorsk

There's a simpler way:
1) run "dumpbin /exports ebookusb.dll /out:ebookusb.def"
...

That's great. It was possible to do with lib.exe in earlier (5 and smaller) versions of MSVS but the possibility was not present for some period. Good to know it is back. It was back in 6EE actually ;-).

Creating a fake dll gives you a debugging stub to work with you client.

[geekraver]

Thanks guys; my C/C++ experience is almost all in the *nix world, so I haven't had to deal with this much before (actually I did do this once before to access the radio interface library on smartphones, but had forgotten about it).

Will press on tonight. I'm planning on making a straight .exe that will act a bit like busybox; i.e. support dir/ls, cp, etc style commands. That way it will be useful outside of my RSS project, and won't require Python installed.

[Slava]

Come on, ppl, lets update that firmware

[igorsk]

Well, I think I'm almost done. I just tried writing to the "Reserved" partition which seems to be unused and could read my data back. Next is to try updating an actual filesystem... wish me luck

[Slava]

Good luck, Igor

[NatCh]

I'll second that!

Remember the Hard Reset instructions are there if you need them!

[porkupan]

Good luck, Igor. Please keep us informed about how you get to where you get. Does writing to a reserved partition involve only a command to the eBook software, which then somehow flashes new data from one place in the filesystem into the read-only ones, or did you have to first encrypt the data being written?

[gseryakov]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Remember the Hard Reset instructions are there if you need them!

If this is applicable to reflashing failure.

It is simple to test safely: when reflashing a reflashing screen is being shown. Run the hard reset and see if the screen came.

Good luck to you and shame on those helpless sony lurkers!

[TadW]

Any idea what parts/memory partition is needed to keep the emergency hard-reset intact?

[arivero]

Amusing, so we are "almost inside" the iLiad and the Reader at the same time. Not enough man resources for both, eh, TadW!

[arivero]

I do not undestand this process tree. First, where are the Reader applications? Do they switch off automatically when you switch on the USB? Second, the only living thing is this tinyhttp.sh shell script. Is is related to usb? How? Is it a httpd process or a series of http gets going on continously?

Originally Posted by igorsk

Process tree on my Reader:

1 init
  2 keventd
  7 mtdblockd
  29 msbdrv_thread
  31 sdbdrv_thread
  47 jffs2_gcd_mtd15
  49 jffs2_gcd_mtd16
  121 tinyhttp.sh
    125 tinyhttp
      126 tinyhttp
          127 tinyhttp
          128 tinyhttp
          130 tinyhttp
          131 tinyhttp
          145 tinyhttp
          147 tinyhttp
          148 tinyhttp
  123 getty
3 ksoftirqd_CPU0
4 kswapd
5 bdflush
6 kupdated

[porkupan]

Originally Posted by arivero

I do not undestand this process tree. First, where are the Reader applications? Do they switch off automatically when you switch on the USB? Second, the only living thing is this tinyhttp.sh shell script. Is is related to usb? How? Is it a httpd process or a series of http gets going on continously?

Yeah, it looks like all Reader UI apps get switched off automatically when the USB is connected.

How are the USB comms handled? Perhaps by the interrupts and device drivers (loadable modules) on the Reader side.

Here is the list of kernel modules:

usbtg_pd                6916   1
usbtg_core             22300   0 [usbtg_pd]
snsc_mpu110_rtc         7328   1
libroi2s                9956   0
soundcore               3984   2 [libroi2s]
sd                     53200   2
ms_sep                 47188   2
librofb                52308  64