GP32 Firmware Creation


pea

pea

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Hi guys,

Is it possible to convert an fxe to 'firmware' ?

For example, if I make a standard fxe which has a desktop, can recognise files on the smc and show icons, am I able to convert this to firmware and flash my GP (if I had one)?

Or do you have to code firmware in ASM from the start? Or are there perhaps certain things that the firmware has to have?
 
generalnmx posted on Oct 4 2004 at 12:15 PM said:
http://www.gp32x.de/aquafish/

You want the GP32 Firmware Maker under Development. Although the site is in French, it's easy enough to understand ;)
​
Click to expand...

Thankyou general!

Funnily enough, I had been to his site earlier today but totally missed that app! I was looking for 'zed' and couldn't find that either, but now I have. BTW, do you think this means 'initial release' and 'latest release' ?
Première release : 27/02/2004
Dernière mise a jour : 18/06/2004
Click to expand...

Now to find out exactly what the BIOS does, as I see Mr Spiv has his own version! but I'll search first....
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The BIOS is what you see when you first start up your GP32. It is more commonly called "Firmware", which is software on an embedded, flashable media - the GP32's EEPROM. It can take up a maximum of 512KB. The BIOS is in charge of setting up applications. Once finished, the BIOS does not stay resident in memory (which is why you need to reboot).
 
Ah, I see. So I was confused.
BIOS == firmware ?

So the firmware (if I have this correctly) is simply ANY application (in the correct format) stored on the EEPROM, which is loaded automatically when the GP starts?

So, for example, I could make an MP3 player, convert this to firmware, make sure it is small enough, and then flash this to the GP32. Then whenever I start the GP, it would boot stright into the MP3 player?

I know this is a bad idea, because from what I understand, to flash a new firmware you run an .fxe, but sinze the MP3 player has no way of launching an fxe, you would be stuck with the MP3 player!

So when Mr Spiv modified the BIOS to include support for more than 8MB RAM, which then configures the system to handle this, the extra RAM can only be used by the BIOS? - Because as soon as you launch an .fxe, the "BIOS does not stay resident" therefore it can't manage the extra memory anymore?
 
pea posted on Oct 4 2004 at 02:58 AM said:
Ah, I see. So I was confused.
BIOS == firmware ?

So the firmware (if I have this correctly) is simply ANY application (in the correct format) stored on the EEPROM, which is loaded automatically when the GP starts?

So, for example, I could make an MP3 player, convert this to firmware, make sure it is small enough, and then flash this to the GP32. Then whenever I start the GP, it would boot stright into the MP3 player?

I know this is a bad idea, because from what I understand, to flash a new firmware you run an .fxe, but sinze the MP3 player has no way of launching an fxe, you would be stuck with the MP3 player!

So when Mr Spiv modified the BIOS to include support for more than 8MB RAM, which then configures the system to handle this, the extra RAM can only be used by the BIOS? - Because as soon as you launch an .fxe, the "BIOS does not stay resident" therefore it can't manage the extra memory anymore?
​
Click to expand...

Firmware is just a technical term for a combination of software and hardware. Its kinda difficult to understand but the most common example of this is the BIOS, but I'm sure there are other things too.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks. I know that firmware refers to semi-permanent hardware implemented software (say that twice backwards!), but just thought that it might have had a special meaning in this case, since everyone refers to the 'firmware' rather than the BIOS or whatever ....

Is there anything 'special' the firmware has to do, or can it do anything it wants to, as long as its legal (i.e. It would run ok as an fxe normally)?
 
fimware!=bios
thefirst thing the gp do is loading the bios, witch have to be the first vew k of the firmware, without the bios the gp32 can do notthing couse it controles memory,mmu and stuff, when the bios is loadet it loads th upper k of the firmware, wich can be any gp32 executebel.
so when you want to make a own firmware you first rip the bios and then join it with your fxe, and that is exactly what the gpfirmware maker do.

and aout the legality, its actually not realy 100% legal, as the bios is the original (or moiefied)gamepark one in all currently availible firmwares, vut anyway gampark dont seems to care in anyway.
 
Thank you Vimacs!

Thats exactly what I needed to know.
And the BIOS stays memory resident, or is it just used to set up registers etc, and is then no longer needed until reboot?
 
i would say use spivs, than you have the neat error screen and also 8/32/64mb ram autodetection when you grab the newest

oh, and the bios didnt change too much compared with eufw bios, you can of course run eufw on top of it, but then pclink will not work @ eufw, so you have to suply another pclink programm that works with it, like df's one
df's creat pclink replacement http://darkfader.net/gp32/
 
You can use any FXE you like as the startup application with firmware such as Pacrom, Aquafish etc without flashing at all. It's not the same method but gets the same result and you don't have to flash. You can also have different SMCs behave differently on startup...

®
 
Shirohagen,

I like this method! It sounds like the easiest way to get it all going. And getting it to load a different app on startup of different smc's is pretty cool.

Plus, if I develop a nice app (along the lines of wind-ups) I bet others more in the know would be willing to convert it to firmware if it was good enough :)
 
Yeah you can test out your FXE extensively before you decide to flash with it and make sure you want to. I use windups on all my cards but they have different backgrounds and icon arrangements (as this is held on the SMC) depending on which one I put in which is nice.

Aquafish's Multifirmware is a good one, so I always have the option of holding select and using Pacrom etc if I want to. It can launch 2 or 3 FXEs from it's startup menu or you can set an autoboot one with it or through Pacrom.

Don't really think I'll ever need to flash the firmware again now.

®
 
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