SONY/Tektronix AWG520 2ch 1Gs/s with no output - repair attempt and teardown

[Martin Hodge]

Also check your front panel pcb for a SMT electrolytic near the Piezoelectric buzzer. This one leaked on my 610 and destroyed the pcb trace going to the front power button. That is how I got mine cheap, it wouldn't power on.

In this pic I've already replaced the bad cap and run bodge wires to fix traces. The capacitor only runs the buzzer and I've never heard it being used.

The trace right at the edge of the pcb, near the bad cap, happens to be the power button trace. The trace that runs alongside supplies 2KHZ square wave signal to the bell circuit. If you want to test that the bell still works, momentarily touch a 1k resistor between R90 and the nearby VCC test loop. You should hear a convincing 2KHz "DING" sound. Without the capacitor it sounds like "DIT".

I only mention this because it's a neat little circuit worthy of study if one wants a half decent bell sound.

[DC1MC]

Also check your front panel pcb for a SMT electrolytic near the Piezoelectric buzzer. This one leaked on my 610 and destroyed the pcb trace going to the front power button. That is how I got mine cheap, it wouldn't power on.

In this pic I've already replaced the bad cap and run bodge wires to fix traces. The capacitor only runs the buzzer and I've never heard it being used.

Thanks,a cleaning/removing of a small part trapped there that makes noise when shaked is on my todo list.

[madao]

Do you want swap this old 486 SBC with my  SBC Board with Pentium 133?
 I have a running Board in similar format with Pentium 133 CPU.

Interessing ?
I'll take soon Photo of board.

Greetings
matt

Absolutely Matt, I would be very interested, now I want just to see if I just produced a heavy brick by trying to read the special 10MB SSD (hopefully not and it's just a retarded IDE password protection). But by any means, please post the pictures.

 DC1MC

I didn't belive, it fit 100% in AWG520, because  14pole (?) connector to Board is  special.
My board is  PENTIUM/6X86  PIA-460

[DC1MC]

Do you want swap this old 486 SBC with my  SBC Board with Pentium 133?
 I have a running Board in similar format with Pentium 133 CPU.

Interessing ?
I'll take soon Photo of board.

Greetings
matt

Absolutely Matt, I would be very interested, now I want just to see if I just produced a heavy brick by trying to read the special 10MB SSD (hopefully not and it's just a retarded IDE password protection). But by any means, please post the pictures.

 DC1MC

I didn't belive, it fit 100% in AWG510, because  14pole (?) connector to Board is  special.
My board is  PENTIUM/6X86  PIA-460

I'll give it a try, please PM with the price and I'll quickly reassemble my beast to see if it still runs and if you want to part with it I'll take it. Also if you don't have a replacement board for the AWG510 I can offer you my existing 486, if the new board fits and works. Please post a picture if possible.

Cheers,
DC1MC

[madao]

PM send

If  System has a Intel 486DX4 , then is  upgrade  possiblty marginal. (Pentium Overdrive is rare and expensiv)
AMD 5x86-133 ist minor  faster than Intel DX4-100. Reason: Intel DX4 is a heavy improvement 486.

Improvement of Intel DX4 is not only  3.3V and  16kb L1. Also FPU and Intger-unit is better than old 486. Up to 10% faster at same clock.

[DC1MC]

PM send

If  System has a Intel 486DX4 , then is  upgrade  possiblty marginal. (Pentium Overdrive is rare and expensiv)
AMD 5x86-133 ist minor  faster than Intel DX4-100. Reason: Intel DX4 is a heavy improvement 486.

Improvement of Intel DX4 is not only  3.3V and  16kb L1. Also FPU and Intger-unit is better than old 486. Up to 10% faster at same clock.

Hi Matt, PM replied, I don't actually know what species of 486 I have, for this I have to lift the cooler, but as I've said, out of curiosity, I want to see if it works with another board, the beast will stay anyways open until the 2GB SSD will arrive, I really want to get rid of the spinning rust, it makes strange noises, the 10MB secret SSD it's probably safe for a long while.

 So I'm waiting for an answer from you, today I'll go early to sleep, the clutch of my car failed and I've got a German price quotation that makes me wonder if it's not the time to get anotrer car, but with the ecologist on the rise one never knows what will be permitted to drive in the city in a coupe of years  ,
 So being a bit pooped I'll just read until sleeping.

 DC1MC

[DC1MC]

The 2GB SSD arrived very fast, now I have to wait for the gender changer  .

[DC1MC]

After I've found an adapter and being happy, then this happened, FRAK ALL THE STUPID SIZES !!!

Original 2GB Disk:
[sdc] 4221504 512-byte logical blocks: (2.16 GB/2.01 GiB)

New SSD:
[sdc] 4000752 512-byte logical blocks: (2.05 GB/1.91 GiB)

Actual partition end:
Device     Boot Start     End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *       63 4193279 4193217   2G  6 FAT16

Way after the last block of the small basterd 

sudo dd if=Hitachi.img of=/dev/sdc     
dd: writing to '/dev/sdc': No space left on device
4000753+0 records in
4000752+0 records out
2048385024 bytes (2,0 GB, 1,9 GiB) copied, 425,544 s, 4,8 MB/s

sudo dd of=Hitachi_ver.img if=/dev/sdc
4000752+0 records in
4000752+0 records out
2048385024 bytes (2,0 GB, 1,9 GiB) copied, 104,909 s, 19,5 MB/s


At least the speed is not crappy, I have now to search a 4GB one 

Depressed,
 DC1MC

[capt bullshot]

Have you tried gparted or similar to resize that partition? A FAT16 partition shouldn't be a big deal for it.
Not with the original disk, use an intermediate copy, then put that resized image onto the new SSD.

[DC1MC]

Have you tried gparted or similar to resize that partition? A FAT16 partition shouldn't be a big deal for it.
Not with the original disk, use an intermediate copy, then put that resized image onto the new SSD.

If the Winriver guys would have not perverted the FAT structure for the DOS filesystem would have been an excellent solution , but being @-locher they've created some mutant thing that shows as truly defective and  gparded doesn't want to continue  .
I've found an old Linux driver to mount that perverted FS, but unfortunately for the kernel 2.8.something and doesn't compile anymore on newer kernels 
In the end I've got a 4GB CF card with adapter, let's see how this works.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[Martin Hodge]

It appears the SSD (drive C:) is a standard FAT partition. This would make sense as the BIOS would need something familiar to boot from. When booting from a DOS 6.22 floppy I can get a sane looking directory listing of C: (see img)

A dir of D: (the rust) is barely legible though, which leads me to believe it's HRFS.

[YetAnotherTechie]

don't forget to check for te existence of HPA (host protected area) on the disks

[DC1MC]

don't forget to check for te existence of HPA (host protected area) on the disks

Dow does one check for this ?

[DC1MC]

It appears the SSD (drive C:) is a standard FAT partition. This would make sense as the BIOS would need something familiar to boot from. When booting from a DOS 6.22 floppy I can get a sane looking directory listing of C: (see img)

A dir of D: (the rust) is barely legible though, which leads me to believe it's HRFS.

This is totally different from my rotating rust  , what kind of DOS did you boot, is 6.22 OK ?

DC1MC

[YetAnotherTechie]

don't forget to check for te existence of HPA (host protected area) on the disks

Dow does one check for this ?

I use MHDD from hddguru. Aparenlty is also possible with hdparm in linux

To use HDPARM to clear the HPA

For x = device you're targeting, use the following HDPARM command to show if you have an HPA enabled.

# hdparm -N /dev/sdx
It will spit back something like the following if you have an HPA defined:

/dev/sdx:
max sectors   = 78125000/78165360, HPA is enabled

taken from https://superuser.com/questions/642637/harddrive-wipe-out-hidden-areas-like-hpa-and-dco-after-malware-infection
If enabled, max sectors and max physycal sectors will be different, i don't have a log here, but smartd might also tell you.(but not allow you to change it)
I've never seen nor dealt with DCO mentioned in that page, but HPA was relatively common in 90/2000's for recovery tools/partitions in laptops,etc

[Martin Hodge]

This is totally different from my rotating rust  , what kind of DOS did you boot, is 6.22 OK ?

DC1MC

Yes 6.22, but the image I posted was from the SSD, not the HD.

I've also successfully booted this 610 on freedos and a win98 boot disk. I think any floppy that will boot on a 486/pentium pc should boot on your 520. But you do have to go into the BIOS and change the boot order to "A then C". (Assuming your 520 has similar bios of course)

[DC1MC]

This is totally different from my rotating rust  , what kind of DOS did you boot, is 6.22 OK ?

DC1MC

Yes 6.22, but the image I posted was from the SSD, not the HD.

I've also successfully booted this 610 on freedos and a win98 boot disk. I think any floppy that will boot on a 486/pentium pc should boot on your 520. But you do have to go into the BIOS and change the boot order to "A then C". (Assuming your 520 has similar bios of course)

Hmmm, so either the SBC has a bios password for the SSD, or is some strange timing problem that the SSD is recognized, but unreadable, with the IDE-USB adapter. Definitely I must boot it with a floppy to see if I see it on my side as well.
The HDD has a "normal" boot sector and MBR, and I've found the User application that I've updated early in the HDD image content.

I have had a terrible lack of energy today, mostly due to the gothic weather all day, but tomorrow I will try to reassemble it enough to boot and see what I'll find there.

 DC1MC

[YetAnotherTechie]

could it be that it's accessed by cyl-track-sector and not lba? in that case those parameters would be on the bios settings

[DC1MC]

So, being mortally bored  and after drinking a can of "Crazy Wolf" (a even more toxic German version of "Red Bull", I've decided to reassemble provisionally the brain cage and first see if the device still works and then see if can get the SSD image out of it.

- Step one, reassembly complete, device still works perfectly,  .

- Step two,  to Martin Hodge, I've booted in the BIOS of the device and there is nothing special there, some Phoenix BIOS (see pictures). but it boots and the boot order can be switched to start from floppy, all OK, but which floppy ?!?

- Step three: Find and make a bootable Linux floppy that has all the network drivers and could automatically load them, also must be a 1,44MB image, instead of the more usual 1,72MB. Why Linux, because Linux is the hornyest OS in the world, it mounts everything  .
Here we have Pocket Linux, perfect for this purpose:
https://archiveos.org/pocket/

Let's give it a try, it boots wonderfully, now let's find a keyboard, then a PS2 adapter, found, we can select on the startup menu "Manual Network Setup" and put something in the IP class of my shared network interface, done, ping traditionally yahoo.com, it launches mtr (a traceroute type utility) but it works like a charm. wonderful, but the old dd command on the floppy is a POS and doesn't do what the modern DD command does and also there is no place to actually copy the image  , what to do, I have no other 2,5" IDE disk, kind of stuck  , but hey, happy, happy, joy, joy, we have a ftp client !!!, one can do things using a ftp client    !!!
At least I can brutally mount the mystery SSD and see the same files as Martin H. :
mount /dev/hda1 -o ro  /mnt
At this moment one can do a ls /mnt and copy the files on another floppy (the boot floppy can be removed, as the Linux run entirely in RAM), but then I want the full SSD image, that is /dev/hda

- Step four: Make a ftp server on my laptop running Linux Mint (or any other Ubuntu variant), in three simple steps:
4.1) sudo apt install vsftpd
4.2) sudo vi /etc/vsftpd.conf and enable writing of files (delete the # in front of write_enable=YES line), save and exit ( ESC, followed  by :wq)
4.3) sudo systemctl restart vsftpd

- Step five, become überhacker, on the Pocket Linux console start the ftp command and when prompted input your user name and password.
Yeah so what, b-but the /dev/hda  is a special device file, you can't treat it like a normal file !!! You think so, we are überhackers here,  let's try this eleet command:

put "| cat /dev/hda" ssd_10mb.img

Hey look, it worked, we can even try for the HDD (/dev/hdb) but since it was copied already, I leave this as an exercise for the people that want to have an image of the rotating rust without disassembling the device, VERY recommended to keep images of storage media, because when they're gone, is game over.

So now we have a nice image, can we mount it with this Mint horny Linux ?!?!

# los SDD_10MB.img
/dev/loop0
/mnt/loop0p1

#ls -la /mnt/loop0p1
total 7284
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   16384 Jan  1  1970 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root    4096 Dez 12 22:49 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  283008 Mai 10  2000 bootrom.sys
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     192 Dez  6 18:48 cal.dat
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root      32 Jul 27  1998 delays.dly
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6495984 Dez  6 18:29 pegasus
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  642448 Dez  6 18:27 pegasus.os
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1743 Jan  1  1996 setup.inf


And here we are, let's cat a file that may have some interesting stuff:
# cat  /mnt/loop0p1/setup.inf
/*                                                         */
/* setup.inf                                               */
/*                                      build#971028a      */
/*                                                         */
/* See document file in $PROJECT/doc/setup.inf for detail. */
/*                                                         */

/* drive definitions */
c_drive = 0
d_drive = 1

axssd03 = 0
axssd10 = 1
dpra21215 = 2
caviar1425 = 3
dk224a14 = 4
dk225a14 = 4
dk226a21 = 5

/* installation parameters */
/* drive type */
cDriveType = axssd10
dDriveType = dk226a21

/* install device */
sysInstallDevice = 1         /* 0 for diskettes, 1 for network */

/* os */
/* sysInstallOsFrom: CHANGABLE, sysInstallOsTo: DON'T CHANGE */
strcpy &sysInstallOsFrom, "/product/awg500/pegasus.os"
strcpy &sysInstallOsTo, "/ide0/pegasus.os"

/* user program */
/* sysInstallUsrFrom, CHANGABLE, sysInstallUsrTo DON'T CHANGE */
strcpy &sysInstallUsrFrom, "/product/awg500/pegasus"
strcpy &sysInstallUsrTo, "/ide0/pegasus"

/* network parameters, CHANGABLE */
strcpy &sysInstallSelfIp, "3.22.99.3"
strcpy &sysInstallHostIp, "3.22.104.1"
sysInstallNetProtocol = 0      /* 0 for TFTP, 1 for NFS */

/* operation parameters */
/* system startup script, NEVER CHANGE */
strcpy &sysStartupFile, "/ide0/setup.inf"

/* load & initial state, DON'T CHANGE, but CHANGABLE only for debugging */
usrBootLevel = 2 /* 0 for BOOT_DONTLOAD, 1 for BOOT_LOAD, 2 for BOOT_LOADGO */
strcpy &usrLoadFile, "/ide0/pegasus"
strcpy &usrInitDir, "/main/"
strcpy &usrStartupFile, ""

/* user program entry point, NEVER CHANGE */
strcpy &usrEntry, "_usrProgramEntry"

/* the end of information file */


At the end, enjoy some not so great     CRT pictures with different phases described above, you will realize which is which 

DC1MC

[Martin Hodge]

Nice work! It looks like you got as far as one user on the Tek forums did with being able to get an image of both drives. He was never able to write those images to new drives and get them to work, though. Will be interesting to see your results with the 4gb drive you have on the way.

I would be interested to see a dir listing of your 520s HDD using your linux floppy.

[Martin Hodge]

For comparison, here's what DOS 6.22 thinks of the HDD in my 610 vs what the machine's own OS shows. (Looks like your 520 HDD is just fat16?)

[DC1MC]

Nice work! It looks like you got as far as one user on the Tek forums did with being able to get an image of both drives. He was never able to write those images to new drives and get them to work, though. Will be interesting to see your results with the 4gb drive you have on the way.

I would be interested to see a dir listing of your 520s HDD using your linux floppy.

I will give it a try, but AFAIK there is this perverted FAT filesystem, so probably nothing of value will be gained, but AFAIK, the files can be copied either on the floppy or on the NFS shares.
On the other hand, I'll love if you can post the Tek forum thread dealing with this, looking in the setup.inf file I see a small list of disks:
/* drive definitions */
c_drive = 0
d_drive = 1

axssd03 = 0
axssd10 = 1
dpra21215 = 2
caviar1425 = 3
dk224a14 = 4
dk225a14 = 4
dk226a21 = 5

/* installation parameters */
/* drive type */
cDriveType = axssd10
dDriveType = dk226a21
...


I hope that they didn't lock the OS/data on the disk ID, this will be really a POS  , but where is need (and IdaPro), there is a way  .
At least for the rotating rust, something must be done, this thing makes really scary noises on my device, and most likely on many others.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[Martin Hodge]

Here is the brief mention by "Carl M" his link to his previous message doesn't work.
https://forum.tek.com/viewtopic.php?t=136866

[Martin Hodge]

I think this is the broken link. Carl M appears to be a Tek employee?

https://forum.tek.com/viewtopic.php?t=136573

Have you tried just creating a fat16 partition on your new, too small drive and plugging it in?

[DC1MC]

Thanks Martin for the hunting the Tek links, unfortunately I kind of fell the the good Carl it may be an excellent Tek but the subtleties  of the IDE disks may have been a bit too much for him, especially the CHS vs. LBA layout.
Some of the other guys tried to correct some of the things (especially regarding the bootrom.sys, that a a system file that must be indeed in a favorite place for the device to boot. like msdos.sys).

And the good man thought that the OS is Linux  . Also the doom and gloom that the files are not available anymore, they are, just not in a nice "click and create a disk" format. And by this I mean the updates from Tek could be used to restore a instrument with missing or fully bleached disks.
EDIT: Small correction here, the latest OS update is just the pegasus.os file out of the whole system, I'm looking for earlyer updates if they contain more.

For this one just needs a program to create the disks properly, I may try to write one when I have the male IDE connector adaptor, because both the too small pseudo 2GB and the 64MB I bought for the 10MB replacement have female connectors, like usually DiskOnChip have:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/224002102325

So no instrument testing is possible until the adapters are arriving  , I've desperately searched in my old junk box, but could not find any PATA disks left . In the mean time I'll try to focus on the Linux driver that I've found, once I'm able to read and write files, a mkfs.vxfat utility should follow  . there is no need to create a FAT16 partition, the actual VXEXT1  partition type shows as FAT12 and a FAT16 partition will most likely be ignored.

Cheers,
DC1MC