A certain rarity...

[Jumpman]

Panasonic Jungle...

Good catch Sony, I didn't even notice that until now. LOL

Chris

 

[TeDaDeS]

Maybe one of the people who worked on one of these units knows how to get through the activation screen. But not much information was made public except like a single photo and a brief appearance on some show, so I don't know who to ask.

 

[Jumpman]

Maybe one of the people who worked on one of these units knows how to get through the activation screen. But not much information was made public except like a single photo and a brief appearance on some show, so I don't know who to ask.

Yeah, just contact Ben Heck, and send it to him, as he'll get to the bottom of this mystery, and make some cool videos to go along with it as well.

Chris

 

[Grench]

Before sending near enough to unique items to guys with shows on the internet, might want to do a few things just to see.

If you really want to hack into this, start with the basics. To get anywhere is going to require a bit of drudgery. In my limited experience, beta gear always has a back door sequence.

Turn it of. Then push and hold the power button through initial boot - does a different menu come up?
Turn it of. Then push and hold the first button through initial boot - does a different menu come up?
Repeat for all buttons.

What happens if you connect the device to a computer with a USB cable while the device is powered on? Since it's beta, it might just show up as a mass storage device. Harvest/backup the OS as-is before messing with it maybe?

What happens if you connect the device to a computer with a USB cable before the device is powered on? Since it's beta, it might just show up as a mass storage device...

It is going to have one of about 3 possible Nvidia SoC CPUs. Find a Linux distro for one of them, create a bootable USB stick, try booting from it. Repeat with a microSD card. Repeat & repeat with distros for each potential SoC.

Record any non-typical responses you can get form the unit. They might be good clues.
[doublepost=1530124557,1530124282][/doublepost]Research.

This is likely a device from the testing program?
https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/30/panasonics-jungle-game-system-begins-us-testing/

To get more information about the testing program - or maybe even the instructions that Panasonic would have provided to the testers - find a tester. Maybe the person who sold it to you could give you more information. Did you ask?

 

[AVahne]

I don't know if I was lucky or if I had some kind of epiphany, but.....


I managed to access this menu by holding the Message button (I've been noticing that it refuses to boot if the Message button is held along with more 2 other buttons; I can hold any other 4 or more random buttons and it still boots, so Messages was definitely suspicious) along with L1 and R1 while powering up!
Now we're in business baby!

Oh, and I have considered sending it to Ben Heck, but I wondered if he would've even heard of this thing and even though he and his team are indeed professionals I feared the possibility of it breaking.

[doublepost=1530146793,1530146390][/doublepost]
I'm running basic commands to see what works. Not much works so far.
[doublepost=1530147265][/doublepost]
Errrr.....woukd someone smarter than me mind telling me how much RAM this thing has?
[doublepost=1530148975][/doublepost]Here's our proof that it's a Tegra 2!
[doublepost=1530149184][/doublepost]So....448 MB RAM?

 

[levi]

You can get free to spit out human readable numbers using 'free -h', but to me that looks like not quite 512MB.

 

[AVahne]

[doublepost=1530149667,1530149569][/doublepost]

You can get free to spit out human readable numbers using 'free -h', but to me that looks like not quite 512MB.

Unfortunately it doesn't like I can type the - with this keyboard. It's the ALT key for K, but pressing or holding ALT won't let me type it. Nothing happens :/
[doublepost=1530149965][/doublepost]hmm...so I should be able to mount an SD card now and probably a USB stick (once I find my OTG cable). Is there a command that I can use to backup the entire OS/boot drive? Would like to make a back up just in case, and also so I can dump it onto the Internet for anyone who wants to look at it.

 

[levi]

Can you perhaps do the unicode character entry hack, which is to hold ctrl+shift and press u which prints an underlined u in the terminal line editor, then type 002d which is unicode for the hypen/minus ASCII character then hit the space bar. I dunno if that works in bash 3.2, but it might be worth a try (although it's hardly a usable technique for normal use, perhaps you could redefine a key, or use a variable)

 

[AVahne]

I'm feeling tired now, guess the excitement of finally being able to get to a command line has worn off.
Here's a photo of the unit while in the terminal so you can see just how TINY THE LETTERS ARE, before I go.


[doublepost=1530150559,1530150147][/doublepost]

Can you perhaps do the unicode character entry hack, which is to hold ctrl+shift and press u which prints an underlined u in the terminal line editor, then type 002d which is unicode for the hypen/minus ASCII character then hit the space bar. I dunno if that works in bash 3.2, but it might be worth a try (although it's hardly a usable technique for normal use, perhaps you could redefine a key, or use a variable)

Erm......ctrl+shift and U didn't do anything.....


Also, I think the engineers working on this thing had a sense of humor. After typing REBOOT, Right before it reboots it prints a line saying "Sending SIGTEM to all mortals"

 

[Jumpman]

Yeah, I can't say for sure if Ben's heard of this or not, but he's a gadget guy, and if I ever came across an item like this, and wanted to know more, he's the guy I would trust to do so. If your happy experimenting, go for it, as there's no harm, unless you think you may break something. I would just send him an email at some point, and provide pics and info you have and go from there. He can probably tell you what was intended for certain things, and what if anythings may need repair or replacements? Like the Sony/Nintendo CD combo, it's a lot of guess work, as without proper documentation, your left to wonder how many things may be functioning as intended or never worked to begin with.

Chris

 

[AVahne]

Yeah, I can't say for sure if Ben's heard of this or not, but he's a gadget guy, and if I ever came across an item like this, and wanted to know more, he's the guy I would trust to do so. If your happy experimenting, go for it, as there's no harm, unless you think you may break something. I would just send him an email at some point, and provide pics and info you have and go from there. He can probably tell you what was intended for certain things, and what if anythings may need repair or replacements? Like the Sony/Nintendo CD combo, it's a lot of guess work, as without proper documentation, your left to wonder how many things may be functioning as intended or never worked to begin with.

Chris

Mmm, yeah I could probably shoot him an email once I get around to opening it up. The way it's built is rather strange though, so I'm much more concerned about breaking something than I would be while opening a Pandora, GPD Win, DS, or even a gaming laptop.
Maybe I should probably just not open it myself lol

 

[spud42]

Yeah, I can't say for sure if Ben's heard of this or not, but he's a gadget guy, and if I ever came across an item like this, and wanted to know more, he's the guy I would trust to do so. If your happy experimenting, go for it, as there's no harm, unless you think you may break something. I would just send him an email at some point, and provide pics and info you have and go from there. He can probably tell you what was intended for certain things, and what if anythings may need repair or replacements? Like the Sony/Nintendo CD combo, it's a lot of guess work, as without proper documentation, your left to wonder how many things may be functioning as intended or never worked to begin with.

Chris

only problem with this is that Ben has quit. they even had a contest to find the next Ben . its been obvious for the last year or two that hes had enough.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Mmm, yeah I could probably shoot him an email once I get around to opening it up. The way it's built is rather strange though, so I'm much more concerned about breaking something than I would be while opening a Pandora, GPD Win, DS, or even a gaming laptop.
Maybe I should probably just not open it myself lol

I would be keen to see yolu open it and post some pics.

Is it just screwed together?

 

[Jumpman]

only problem with this is that Ben has quit. they even had a contest to find the next Ben . its been obvious for the last year or two that hes had enough.

Ahh, I had no idea he had left the scene, so I guess him as an option is no longer on the table.

Chris

 

[Grench]

I don't know if I was lucky or if I had some kind of epiphany, but.....

I managed to access this menu by holding the Message button (I've been noticing that it refuses to boot if the Message button is held along with more 2 other buttons; I can hold any other 4 or more random buttons and it still boots, so Messages was definitely suspicious) along with L1 and R1 while powering up!
Now we're in business baby!

Congratulations on finding the developer edition backdoor!!!

My next question would be whether you can get it to mount a microSDXC card in that slot and make a backup of the OS files. Those are nearly as precious as the hardware.

 

[AVahne]

only problem with this is that Ben has quit. they even had a contest to find the next Ben . its been obvious for the last year or two that hes had enough.

Oh...well I guess I'm on my own then. Good on Ben, though.
[doublepost=1530217680,1530217520][/doublepost]

I would be keen to see yolu open it and post some pics.

Is it just screwed together?

The construction seems kinda...weird. as far as I can tell, there's only 4 screws. All 4 of which are under the battery cover, with 2 of them hiding under a sticker. It doesn't FEEL cheaply built (though the plastic quality is just 'meh' imo), so I would assume there's clips all over the place or something.
[doublepost=1530217896][/doublepost]

Congratulations on finding the developer edition backdoor!!!

My next question would be whether you can get it to mount a microSDXC card in that slot and make a backup of the OS files. Those are nearly as precious as the hardware.

I happen to have a spare 64 GB card, so I'll give it a try later.

 

[levi]

Yeah, screws under the battery compartment with clips round the edge is how quite a lot of kit these days is put together. I have a selection of cheap nylon guitar picks I use to wedge seams I've opened using my thumb nails (you can also use them directly to jimmy the crack and open a clip, but I prefer the dexterity of my own thumb nail provided I haven't just cut my nails)

 

[Grench]

Yeah, screws under the battery compartment with clips round the edge is how quite a lot of kit these days is put together. I have a selection of cheap nylon guitar picks I use to wedge seams I've opened using my thumb nails (you can also use them directly to jimmy the crack and open a clip, but I prefer the dexterity of my own thumb nail provided I haven't just cut my nails)

Although teardown pics would be interesting, I must advise caution about disassembling what is a near-unique piece of kit. I liken that to taking the frame off of a Rembrant to see what kind of nails were used to attach the canvas. There is a lot of potential for damage on disassembly and reassembly. From the command line work above we already know the important parts. It is a Tegra 2 SoC with 512MB of RAM and some eMMC (size which can be determined from command line). Although interesting, disassembly isn't going to likely result in anything directly useful.

 

[AVahne]

Yeah, screws under the battery compartment with clips round the edge is how quite a lot of kit these days is put together. I have a selection of cheap nylon guitar picks I use to wedge seams I've opened using my thumb nails (you can also use them directly to jimmy the crack and open a clip, but I prefer the dexterity of my own thumb nail provided I haven't just cut my nails)

The weird thing is is the screws are horizontally aligned IN THE MIDDLE, so I fear it may not just be screws and clips. It feels pretty darn solid.
[doublepost=1530221782,1530221647][/doublepost]

Although teardown pics would be interesting, I must advise caution about disassembling what is a near-unique piece of kit. I liken that to taking the frame off of a Rembrant to see what kind of nails were used to attach the canvas. There is a lot of potential for damage on disassembly and reassembly. From the command line work above we already know the important parts. It is a Tegra 2 SoC with 512MB of RAM and some eMMC (size which can be determined from command line). Although interesting, disassembly isn't going to likely result in anything directly useful.

I'm just curious to see if it has a fan. Near the back are what really look like ventilation vents, yet I don't hear or feel anything while it's running.

 

[Grench]

For the keyboard not mapped well issue - it may be as simple as connecting a regular old USB keyboard via adapter to the microUSB port. If that port is an OTG it just might work.