3 or 4 years ago a number of small Digital Photo Frame Keychain products based on the Sintronix st2205u chipset were mass produced. The st2205u is based on the 6502 CPU (similar to the old Commodore64) and the firmware can be easily hacked using opensource tools (i.e. crasm in Debian repos). Once hacked they can be used as usb powered color backlit displays for tools like LCD4Linux.
The photoframes use an internal rechargeable lithium battery which as a lifespan of 2 or 3 years so the old stock has difficulty holding a charge and consequently they can be found on Ebay very cheaply.
Don't buy new ones off Amazon - the latest generation of frames appear as a CDRW device (/dev/sr0) to Linux and cant be hacked, the old ones appear as a corrupt flash drive (/dev/sdb).
Background Info:
Picframe Project - main hack site - doesnt seem to have changed much in the last couple of years
st2205tool - tools and libraries to hack and control your photo frame
LCD4Linux - external display daemon (you need the latest svn version - Debian repo doesn't support st2205)
Howto hack:
DISCLAIMER: Attempting to hacking your firmware may well brick your photo frame, especially if you follow my quick and dirty instructions - don't try it if you are risk adverse.
1. Download & compile software
3. Find your picture frame device (/dev/sdX) by looking at dmesg output
DON'T DO IT! YOU SHOULD BACKUP YOUR FIRMWARE FIRST
Hit CTRL+C and cp fwimage.bin original-fwimage.bin
Then re-run ./hackfw.sh /dev/sdX - this time say 'yes' and go ahead with the hack
# Note: If you want reflash your old firmware, you can with...
# ./phack -uf original-fwimage.bin /dev/sdX
If the script cant find a hack...
Dont panic - this happened to me - start by having a look for your device on the Picframe website. There may be additional instructions to get your device to work. For the Coby DP152 you need to make a one line code change to the st2205tool source and download a new hack config, then recompile and rehack.
If you cant find any info and you are sure you have a Sitronix based frame you can still follow the directions in st2205tool/hack/newhack.txt. You'll have to download and compile a 6502 disassembler and analyze the disassembly. Let me know if you end up going in this direction as I have a perl script that attempts to automate the analysis.
5) Configure LCD4Linux
Enjoy your new dockstar display!
BTW looks like the original hack comes from the same guy that put a dockstar in his Mac SE
-PG
The photoframes use an internal rechargeable lithium battery which as a lifespan of 2 or 3 years so the old stock has difficulty holding a charge and consequently they can be found on Ebay very cheaply.
Don't buy new ones off Amazon - the latest generation of frames appear as a CDRW device (/dev/sr0) to Linux and cant be hacked, the old ones appear as a corrupt flash drive (/dev/sdb).
Background Info:
Picframe Project - main hack site - doesnt seem to have changed much in the last couple of years
st2205tool - tools and libraries to hack and control your photo frame
LCD4Linux - external display daemon (you need the latest svn version - Debian repo doesn't support st2205)
Howto hack:
DISCLAIMER: Attempting to hacking your firmware may well brick your photo frame, especially if you follow my quick and dirty instructions - don't try it if you are risk adverse.
1. Download & compile software
# st2205tool wget http://www.neophob.com/files/st2205tool-1.4.3.tar.gz tar xvfz st2205tool-1.4.3.tar.gz apt-get install libgd2-xpm-dev cd st2205tool && make && make install # LCD4Linux wget http://ssl.bulix.org/projects/lcd4linux/raw-attachment/wiki/Download/lcd4linux-0.11.0-SVN.tar.bz2 tar xvfj lcd4linux-0.11.0-SVN.tar.bz2 cd lcd4linux-0.11.0-SVN ./configure && make2. Plug in your picture frame into a USB port & select 'Upgrade' or 'Update' if prompted (some do, some dont)
3. Find your picture frame device (/dev/sdX) by looking at dmesg output
# lsusb Bus 001 Device 029: ID 1403:0001 Sitronix Digital Photo Frame ... # dmesg | tail -12 usb 1-1.3: new full speed USB device using orion-ehci and address 29 scsi24 : usb-storage 1-1.3:1.0 scsi 24:0:0:0: Direct-Access SITRONIX MULTIMEDIA 0.09 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS sd 24:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 sd 24:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096 512-byte logical blocks: (2.09 MB/2.00 MiB) sd 24:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off sd 24:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08 sd 24:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through sd 24:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through sdb: unknown partition table sd 24:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through sd 24:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk4. Hack your device
cd st2205tool ./hackfw.sh /dev/sdXIf the hack script finds a known hack for your device and prompts if it should go ahead and perform the hack...
DON'T DO IT! YOU SHOULD BACKUP YOUR FIRMWARE FIRST
Hit CTRL+C and cp fwimage.bin original-fwimage.bin
Then re-run ./hackfw.sh /dev/sdX - this time say 'yes' and go ahead with the hack
# Note: If you want reflash your old firmware, you can with...
# ./phack -uf original-fwimage.bin /dev/sdX
If the script cant find a hack...
Dont panic - this happened to me - start by having a look for your device on the Picframe website. There may be additional instructions to get your device to work. For the Coby DP152 you need to make a one line code change to the st2205tool source and download a new hack config, then recompile and rehack.
If you cant find any info and you are sure you have a Sitronix based frame you can still follow the directions in st2205tool/hack/newhack.txt. You'll have to download and compile a 6502 disassembler and analyze the disassembly. Let me know if you end up going in this direction as I have a perl script that attempts to automate the analysis.
5) Configure LCD4Linux
cd ../lcd4linux-* # Download example lcd4linux.conf (looks like this) wget -O lcd4linux.conf http://www.shrani.si/f/1c/J7/ynfJw3W/text.htm # edit out HTML cruft # change device in config to be /dev/sdX6) Start LCD4Linux
./lcd4linux -F -v -f ../lcd4linux.conf
Enjoy your new dockstar display!
BTW looks like the original hack comes from the same guy that put a dockstar in his Mac SE
-PG