From: Paul Guyot (pguyot_at_kallisys.net)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 03:13:53 PDT
Hello all,
I'm looking for someone to organize a fund raising to get and ship to
Philz a MP2100. He's back on Newton hacking world and he just
fixgured out how data is stored on linear cards.
Those who don't know who Philz is, he's one of the first Newton
hackers of the bowels. He worked a lot on storage and Newton dock
protocol.
He is currently working on store dumps he made some time ago. He
lacks some details about the indexes and I think it would be easier
for him to use a MP2x00 since these units have a ROM Image with debug
symbols, so he could see what the system is actually storing and
where.
Actually, he doesn't have any Newton at the moment and he planned to
get a 1.3 MP120 back from a friend. The thing is that NewtonOS 1.x
and 2.x don't store data exactly the same way.
When I suggested that he get a MP2x00, he said he was broke. That's
why I suggest that we raise funds to get him a new Newton for his
future work. We all know that MP2100 are cheaper than ever and if few
people give a dozen of bucks each, he could get one.
The best to organize this fund raising would be someone with a Paypal
account, who lives in the US and who could eBay for the unit or buy
it from J&K and then ship it to Philz in Poland. Since he'll do a lot
of Hammering, he'll need a dongle (although a SER Board would
probably be better as using the dongle a lot can damage the
interconnect port).
From Philz work, I suggested that he undertake a data rescue utility
that would retrieve data from a linear card the Newton accidently
erased or a dying one. Apparently, the number of linear cards that
are dying is increasing. I know a lot of people who'd love that such
a tool existed. Additionally, part of his work could be used with an
ATA data access application to run on a laptop or desktop computer.
Let me explain what he's currently working on.
The system stores your notes, names, NewtWorks documents in soups
which are collections of entries and indexes. Indexes and soup
entries are themselves stored as objects.
What we don't know perfectly (Philz is the one who knows most of it)
is how the objects are stored on linear cards (we know how they're
stored on ATA cards since I engineered this). We don't know either
exactly how objects (on either linear or ATA cards) are linked
together to form soup entries and indices (and additional data on
stores).
Apparently, Philz just figured out how to go to soup entries but he
didn't figure out yet how indices work and how data is compressed
(this would be useful for packages and Works documents).
He has just updated his website:
http://vyx.net/~philz/
(if you have issues, try this URL: http://philz.freezope.org/~philz)
I will gladly participate in the fund raising, I'm just over busy
with university work and unfortunately, I cannot help him much right
now and I cannot organize the fund raising.
Paul
-- Philosophie de baignoire - consultations sur rendez-vous. NPDS: http://newton.kallisys.net:8080/ Apache: http://www.kallisys.com/ -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
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