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Posted by Vew on 08-14-2001 10:21 AM:

Visor Self-Modifications (any thoughts?)

Has anyone tried or even know where these rumors I keep hearing about can be attempted? (instructions that is)

I see talk about people upgrading their Visors from 8mb to 16mbs of ram, but I never actually see instructions, or even evidence that it's been safely done.

I also hear that it is possible to replace the non-flashable ROM on the Visors with a compadable, flashable rom, thus allowing you to upgrade the PalmOS!! With that, I thought it might be interesting to see if removing a rom chip from a Visor Plat. and inserting it into a Visor DLX would actually work to get version 3.5.

I admit I don't think I have the skills to do any of this w/o screwing up my visor, but i have a lot of geek friends that could probably pull it of... not saying that im not one

Any leads? thoughts? anything?? I've spent a good 2 hours already searching the web, and found mostly porn and other dead ends...

__________________
~Jonathan


Posted by jhappel on 08-14-2001 01:57 PM:

Try www.palmpilotupgrade.com

I have read about this on other threads and they all seem to give him high marks.

__________________
Jonathan


Posted by MPM on 08-14-2001 08:36 PM:

Re: Visor Self-Modifications (any thoughts?)

quote:
Originally posted by Vew
<snip>...I also hear that it is possible to replace the non-flashable ROM on the Visors with a compadable, flashable rom, thus allowing you to upgrade the PalmOS!! With that, I thought it might be interesting to see if removing a rom chip from a Visor Plat. and inserting it into a Visor DLX would actually work to get version 3.5...<snip>
Sorry, this one's not possible. While you can replace the ROM in a Visor with a Flash ROM chip, the best you can do is to copy the old ROM into the new Flash ROM chip. There is no way to upgrade the OS because Handspring does not (and will likely never) provide a ROM image you can use to upgrade any of the Visors.


Posted by Vew on 08-16-2001 09:36 PM:

Re: Re: Visor Self-Modifications (any thoughts?)

quote:
Originally posted by MPM
Sorry, this one's not possible. While you can replace the ROM in a Visor with a Flash ROM chip, the best you can do is to copy the old ROM into the new Flash ROM chip. There is no way to upgrade the OS because Handspring does not (and will likely never) provide a ROM image you can use to upgrade any of the Visors.


After replacing the chip with a flashable ROM chip, what would pervent one from downloading PalmOS 4.0 off of palm's website and upgrading with that?

__________________
~Jonathan


Posted by Rolando on 08-16-2001 10:39 PM:

Handspring modifies the standard Palm OS to include features such as Datebook+ and the use of the Springboard slot.

There's no telling what would happen if you tried it...


Posted by tucson_sailors on 08-16-2001 11:37 PM:

OS 3.5 on a VDX

Well -

this discussion has come up before, and other than *legal* restrictions there wasn't a hard and fast rule about using a 3.5 handspring ROM image on a VDX that had been altered for flash rom.

With that in mind however, there isn't a legal place to get the ROM, nobody has admitted to trying this kaizo (yet) and the Plat uses a
different version of the dragonball cpu, and might have different address registers, etc.

I've been wanting 3.5 for the 16 grayscale ability that the controller can handle, but the OS cannot. If you do decide to try this, and it works (probably the easiest way to test would be to pull out the daughterboard from a plat that has the OS on it and try to
install it on a VDX; don't know anyone who has one, so can't try myself) please post it. There is a very small but determined group of hardware modification enthusiasts that have Visors, and if you do a search for Kaizo or Kaizen you'll find some sites about it all.

Good Luck!

Tucson Sailors


Posted by ernieba1 on 08-17-2001 02:42 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Rolando
There's no telling what would happen if you tried it...


Only one way to find out. . .

__________________
-Bernie

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.
-Dan Quayle


Posted by MPM on 08-17-2001 08:52 PM:

Still won't work...

quote:
Originally posted by tucson_sailors
<snip>...and the Plat uses a different version of the dragonball cpu, and might have different address registers, etc...
Correct. Reason #1 why this will not work.
quote:
Originally posted by tucson_sailors
<snip>...If you do decide to try this, and it works (probably the easiest way to test would be to pull out the daughterboard from a plat that has the OS on it and try to install it on a VDX; don't know anyone who has one, so can't try myself)

Reason #2: The is NO processor/ROM/RAM daughterboard in the Platinum. I've opened up both my old Deluxe and my new Platinum to confirm this.

Reason #3: Even if you did install Flash ROM in ANY Visor handheld and then tried to install a different Palm OS - from Palm or copied out of a different Visor - it would not work because the hardware in each device is different. The basic functions are the same between all the Palm OS handhelds, but the fine details of exactly how all the hardware inside is wired up is different between each model, not to mention between each vendor.

The ONLY way you are going to get a different version of the Palm OS onto a Visor is if 1) Handspring provides the new OS either as a software patch or as a flashable ROM image to install into a does-not-yet-exist Visor with Flash ROM, or 2) If someone steals the source code for the Palm OS from both Handspring and Palm, and steals the hardware schematics, and then creates a new, upgraded, ROM image that runs on a specific Visor model.

In other words...it ain't gonna happen. Which is why a broke down and bought a used Platinum - I just could not live within the limits of 3.1 anymore.

Let's just hope that Handspring finaly includes Flash ROM in any new handhelds they introduce. But there is no compelling reason to expect that this will ever happen...


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