Post AwB6u5zQLwEw0vNbs0 by foone@digipres.club
(DIR) More posts by foone@digipres.club
(DIR) Post #AwB4jJzrjbbWMXJySG by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T02:58:58Z
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Today's mood: I'm taking apart a Computer Device that is in that fun category of "you can post about this, but don't tell anyone where it's from". I have to remove two printers (!) from within it, several springs, a whole complicated folding mechanism, and I find that in the auxiliary board (that powers/controls the printers), there's actually a hidden USB device. There's an internal USB port that you can't access without fully disassembling the unit, and /it has a flash drive in it/.
(DIR) Post #AwB4p21tRvZCNKzalM by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T02:59:55Z
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I check my main (win10) laptop, it says no, can't read this, it's some linux partition. So I dig out my linux laptop, find the charger, find the missing power cable for the charger, finally get that plugged in and booted, and attach the mystery flash drive...
(DIR) Post #AwB4sSlyTWOUBeBO1Q by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:00:22Z
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it's a completely empty partition. doesn't appear to have ever been used. 32gb of nothing.
(DIR) Post #AwB51lQIVEtidVTiqG by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:02:19Z
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@0x4d6165 that's happened multiple times! I own several USB drives that just have Never Gonna Give You Up on them.
(DIR) Post #AwB57azYCQb41NkTPU by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:03:14Z
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@flamingspork It's some kind of order-printing-thing, where you select items you want and it prints out receipts. basically a PoS but without money being involved, since it's from some kind of company cafeteria
(DIR) Post #AwB5PoREwaZswCO1oW by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:06:38Z
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@0x4d6165 how about this classic? https://bsky.app/profile/foone.bsky.social/post/3lfc7pdnodk2z
(DIR) Post #AwB5l888vOoM5ncRaS by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:09:46Z
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well, that was certainly worth it! lemme just quickly put this fucker back together.
(DIR) Post #AwB66cXj2wj4UrpgOG by cr1901@mastodon.social
2025-07-16T03:14:24Z
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@foone Gotta build fast... cement drying... Le Floppy?! What the hell is that?!
(DIR) Post #AwB6HQy8Q1x9mnLEZc by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:16:15Z
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oh fuck me it's an NXP i.MX 6.I've used these before in an embedded product. I'm not exactly a fan. Their graphics stack is deeply stupid.
(DIR) Post #AwB6KXqhINgHzcLWHA by WestLawns@mastodon.social
2025-07-16T03:16:39Z
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@foone is that a printer?
(DIR) Post #AwB6bedFKULhx9DG76 by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:19:56Z
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specifically this is a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 at 1ghz. It's got a DDR3 controller on-die, this variant has both the VPU (for video decoding) and GPU (for 3d/2d graphics) as-well.
(DIR) Post #AwB6s9f3jOeEp0veT2 by a1ba@suya.place
2025-07-16T03:23:26.019363Z
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@foone haha vivante I hate it. And it's memory leaking kernel driver.Kinda surprising how long Freescale/NXP supported BSP Linux for it, like from early 3.x to somewhat recent 5.4 (? not sure if it was the latest) though. I have one device with it on my desk, taken from old job. Those are still used in the wild... I guess imx6 isn't going to die for good.
(DIR) Post #AwB6u5zQLwEw0vNbs0 by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:23:23Z
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and hey look here is some DDR3: Micron MT41K128M16JT. 256 megabytes each, with 4 of them, so we've got 1 gigabyte in total.
(DIR) Post #AwB6wnHGNgjoqc0iMS by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:23:39Z
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@WestLawns no, but it has two printers inside it!
(DIR) Post #AwB7BYCci9hgRBsQfA by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:26:33Z
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this thing has some fun design decisions.the auxiliary board has two ethernet ports, and the main CPU board has one. Why's it need so many ethernets? Simple: The main board is in the screen, and the auxiliary board is right where they need the port on the outside. So the main board is just plugged into the auxiliary board with a cat5 cable, and then the other ethernet port sticks outside the case
(DIR) Post #AwB7Fur2QySdqirW8u by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:27:19Z
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the two ethernet ports on the auxiliary board are not electrically connected to anything on the board, except each other. it's just a keystone jack, except soldered to the board!
(DIR) Post #AwB7Gv3x93dAmjNhse by a1ba@suya.place
2025-07-16T03:27:52.358654Z
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@foone yup, meet it's quad brained sister
(DIR) Post #AwB7Y0NOdtQIBhcgiG by StumpyTheMutt@social.linux.pizza
2025-07-16T03:30:30Z
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@foone Two printers? Must be some kind of ATM...
(DIR) Post #AwB7d6FWEaspqmMrJ2 by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:31:28Z
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it looks like they did something with the USB as well, with two USB-A ports on the aux board and a (forbidden!) male-to-male USB-A cable connecting the aux to the main board, but nope! they put a USB hub on there. It's a SMSC (now Microchip) USB2513B USB 2.0 hub
(DIR) Post #AwB8ArSJk7kFoZS8Ku by lackthereof@beige.party
2025-07-16T03:37:35Z
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@foone so is the hub just being used as a repeater, or is it actually driving multiple ports/devices?
(DIR) Post #AwB8DbV1Wav9CC1h9k by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:37:47Z
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the MCU on the aux board is a Micron MK20DX256VLL7: It's a Kinetis K20. That's a 72mhz microcontroller, ARM Cortex-M4. (This is a very microcontroller device compared to the running-linux-CPU of the other chip)
(DIR) Post #AwB8GEkwXXVTWljD6G by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:38:18Z
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@lackthereof It runs two ports and I suspect the MCU as well
(DIR) Post #AwB8aoeKnaOgdmRwx6 by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:42:19Z
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there's a hidden micro-USB port on the main board. interesting.
(DIR) Post #AwB8hQGPrYsb2KPdaq by lilstevie@infosec.exchange
2025-07-16T03:43:25Z
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@foone Freescale were great to work with, not sure how well that’s remained post NXP acquisition but at least when it comes to layerscape and imx they haven’t tightened up access to documentation, but the Vivante GPU is absolute balls. I always opted to use the etnaviv drivers, but the actual GPU itself sucks
(DIR) Post #AwB8owljPMolsOeE6K by lilstevie@infosec.exchange
2025-07-16T03:44:53Z
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@foone I’m not sure what the patched revision is for that CPU but if secure boot is enabled you might be able to bypass it on that port
(DIR) Post #AwB8zrGGE2uDyq89XU by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:46:51Z
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Main storage for the system is this Kingston eMMC chip, a KE4CN3K6A 8 gigabyte chip.
(DIR) Post #AwB9CXmhwzt7L5MAEq by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:49:05Z
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The wifi is a Murata Electronics LBEE5ZSTNC, providing 802.11b/g/n WiFi & bluetooth.
(DIR) Post #AwB9X94F2lgUlGNhMO by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:52:51Z
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It's also got this set of dip switches for subpanel ID.It also calls itself an FST9800 Controller, which has no hits on google.
(DIR) Post #AwBA99EIt9cwGjD08e by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T03:59:40Z
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they also do that weird thing plenty of small-run products do where the internal power supply is just an external power supply they hid inside the box. It's a 24v DC power supply, just mounted internally with a cut-out for the mickey-mouse connector.
(DIR) Post #AwBAFLZ9w2TYGbv4xU by fwaggle@moodoo.org
2025-07-16T04:00:45Z
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@foone Ubiquiti do this for their gear haha
(DIR) Post #AwBB5Wtv2OGITnVpwm by RueNahcMohr@infosec.exchange
2025-07-16T04:10:12Z
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@foone I'v done it, but not quite like that...
(DIR) Post #AwBCmleGBNmEclMxw8 by timjclevenger@infosec.exchange
2025-07-16T04:29:14Z
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@foone Ugh. I remember that some medical equipment is like that. They used external bricks which failed prematurely from the heat of being sealed in a metal box and nobody dared replace them because medical equipment is magical somehow.
(DIR) Post #AwBCqEEqLGCAAC8CfY by abrasive@digipres.club
2025-07-16T04:29:32Z
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@foone that does rather identify the object, are we allowed to say what it is if you don't say where it came from?
(DIR) Post #AwBDARm9iiLvwMM03M by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-16T04:33:32Z
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@abrasive sure!
(DIR) Post #AwBDoSCpXXGKrFuJwO by artemist@social.mildlyfunctional.gay
2025-07-16T04:40:44Z
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@foone i have always assumed that manufacturers encased external PSUs instead of open-frame PSUs to make UL certification easier. I'm not sure how true that is though.
(DIR) Post #AwBDuGPiIPTQ1Shh0C by steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co
2025-07-16T04:41:16Z
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@foone I got hits on duckduckgo.https://www.sourcetech.com/st9800-series-printer-information
(DIR) Post #AwBEahweKG75ZVLe76 by StompyRobot@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-07-16T04:49:27Z
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@foone used for spare/swap space if needed, but it never was?
(DIR) Post #AwBFqjPyiUdOjBGrs8 by abrasive@digipres.club
2025-07-16T05:03:35Z
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@foone apparently it is an Ithaca 9800 Food Safety Terminal! here is the maintenance manual, although sadly I don't see anything juicy in it (other than the hamburger): https://device.report/m/28085cbe6bc2d4b023ef8c2cc388c436e693eb21214dcfd01079bd601e81c73c.pdf
(DIR) Post #AwBG3gSZ1ipbJjelt2 by epithumia@mstdn.social
2025-07-16T05:05:52Z
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@foone Is that it? https://e2e.ti.com/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/196/97_2D00_13424LC1-_2D00_-Schematic.pdf
(DIR) Post #AwBZEThYhS2y3yWyZs by allpurposemat@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-07-16T08:40:28Z
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@foone thank you for giving this connector a name I will never forget
(DIR) Post #AwDOwKPNu0KgnqemBs by foone@digipres.club
2025-07-17T05:54:49Z
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huh. one of the cables is just to reroute the ethernet activity LEDs to the secondary board so they can be seen from outside the printer. lotta work for some blinkies, but I guess not having blinkies is a support nightmare