mpc500 os code

Lampdog wrote:

Ill-Green wrote:Get Jamon on the horn!

That WHOLE fiasco was crazy.

It had everything, made you laugh, made you cry, made you jump out of your chair...DRAMA galore! Google used to have quite a few pages about him back then and none was good.

Maybe Akai hasn't given up the code because of 3rd party agreements and such having another company to design and create the 500. I do know in China, there are factories that make these devices on contract for big name brands like Akai, they got catalogs too that show different types of pads, chips, screens, tactiles, keys, knobs, etc. for creating such a machine. All these companies shop at these factories, only thing they program the OS. If you know your coding, you can maybe import a minimum of 2,000 units of your very own sampler and sell them.

I'll green, u got any links to these companies??.

I did study this a bit,sorry this might be a bit excessive and poorly written.

As is already known the 500 is using the Renesas SH7727 cpu (Renesas is former known as Hitachi), the service manual is available online and can easily be found and tell you all the info you need.
And that is all we know about the whole subject.
The developement tools are also readily available for free by Renesas website only by registering an account. The only tool missing would be the E10-A usb which is the original debugging hardware interface (known as emulator), this would cost alot of money to obtain. A good start would probably be the manual of the processor (around 1000 pages) which would get you more familiar with the sh3 assembly.
Some more things worth investigation would be the e4m port (the one on the battery compartment) plus the debug port (mentioned on the manual and can be found after full dissasembly). For the first port called e4m I have no idea what it is but for the second port I think it's a bit more interesting and ivestigation would be interesting. It is a port called h-udi by renesas and it is a propriatory debugging interface connecting to the E10-A emulator, But it is actually a jtag debugging port, I don't know if the protocol is the same but i've seen debuggers online claiming h-udi compatibility via jtag. Essentially you should really be able to connect through jtag and have most of the jtag operations available.
That's as much as I personally know about the hardware, more on the firmware now.
I saw a post about reading the operating system from the memory . This is too much hassle for no reason I think since the firmware is already available through the update.bin provided by akai.
You can check the firmware through any hex editor or by using ida-pro for dissasembling. At this point I have to mention that changing strings on the firmware is really easy and even bypassing the checksum for flashing it again but this is as far as it goes. I know it's nice to discover some info inside the firmware but these are not code but data. I forgot to mention another basic tool, high-performance-embedded workshop (obtained also by renesas), this is the ide and is really useful, you can even emulate and debug on it.

I think this is almost all the tools and all the available info. Decompilining, dissasembling the firmware would be although really difficult. There is no dissasembler nor decompiler of the firmware that will provide you with usable code, it will provide you chunks of code you can understand and then rewrite. So you essentially rewriting the whole firmware by looking at what it is doing. Probably impossible, but this is a big word. Another case would be to write small patches to patch the firmware on the fly without using the actual firmware code (an example would be the magic lantern for canon cameras). Actually it would be easy to write some piece of code on the ide and run it on the akai (and seems much more doable), a hello world or something, but this is probably as far as it gets if you change the whole firmware (an example of this would be the work done one homepatrol by john doe on a simillar sh3 renesas cpu) .

Now for some candy
I did extract the strings from the firmware and there are some interesting mentions. Multiple mentions of hard drive would probably indicate hdd expandability on the 500. Also there are the strings for a test menu where you can test every single aspect of the 500 and also you can test audio-through, which you probably already know what it means. (I haven't seen anyone on the internet knowing how to access the test menu. )
As it seems, hardwere-wise the mpc1000 and 500 are really simillar, the cpu though is the same(correct me if I'm wrong here).
So if you had the source code for the 500 then you would probably be able to run the 1000 software on it, plus modify it with a 1000 screen and you have the ultimate machine.
Ok let's stop dreaming.

This is as much as I know, I hope someone catches on this project. I know I won't. If someone does though I think these are more than enough to get you started.

Awesome post still_awake!!

Perhaps the unknown port was supposed to be connected to an Akai HD but never went through.

Makes me wonder why JJ never did anything for the 500 if the 1000 OS is identical. But hey, this a new door for the next JJ arise

I don't know if the os is identical, I really haven't examined the 1000 os.
But I only said the cpu is the same which means that the same code should easily run to the 500, the rest of the hardware though is completely different on the machines. That means that if someone was going to build a 1000 os for the 500 then the source code of the 500 would be needed for the hardware part to work. If the source was somehow accesible then 500/1000 hybrid would be easy to make.
If everything that's beeing said about jj is true then he would not be able to do it without the source and even if he was (which would be possible since he's probably one of the original programmers for the 1000) again he wouldn't do it because he would have to use akai's code which is not legal. Again all this assuming that jj used the original code and the whole story blah blah...

I really think there is no hope for this. But ohh man so many capabilities this little machine and so crappy software. Just a small lead and I would work full time for this, but for the last 7 years only possibility is reversing the firmware. =\

Wow!, still awake nice find!! Yes, definitely a lot of work.. I'm gonna keep hope alive but not hold my breath.. thanks for all the time you put in.

still_awake wrote:I don't know if the os is identical, I really haven't examined the 1000 os.
But I only said the cpu is the same which means that the same code should easily run to the 500, the rest of the hardware though is completely different on the machines. That means that if someone was going to build a 1000 os for the 500 then the source code of the 500 would be needed for the hardware part to work. If the source was somehow accesible then 500/1000 hybrid would be easy to make.
If everything that's beeing said about jj is true then he would not be able to do it without the source and even if he was (which would be possible since he's probably one of the original programmers for the 1000) again he wouldn't do it because he would have to use akai's code which is not legal. Again all this assuming that jj used the original code and the whole story blah blah...

I really think there is no hope for this. But ohh man so many capabilities this little machine and so crappy software. Just a small lead and I would work full time for this, but for the last 7 years only possibility is reversing the firmware. =\

Gotcha I understand, but still, its amazing that it has potential to be altered someway and for the better!

Man, maybe if somehow we can do a kickstart and raise money, that be the only way to get a project started because shit like this has to be funded.

Whatever happened to that page jamon created with all the signatures for open sourcing the mpc500 os? Anyone remember that?

Sounds like it would be easier to just create your own hardware and hire people to code the software for you rather than trying to reverse engineer a 500.

MPC-Tutor wrote:Sounds like it would be easier to just create your own hardware and hire people to code the software for you rather than trying to reverse engineer a 500.

this is the absolute truth.

and please no kickstarter

True, there are plenty of sources to build your own machine, mainly from China. I saw everything from pad sensors, tactile switches to motherboards. Still, someone has to create the OS.

Always wanted something compact like the Digitakt but with a more desireable OS and bigger RAM.

Btw, I just started fixing the midi out of the 500 so it can drive outboard gear. (I remember but can't find, a thread of someone not being able to power up his wireless midi adapter from the 500. Which is true)
So if anyone wants the fix and knows how to use a soldering iron tell me so I post the full details.
It's not an easy fix though I have to say.

EDIT:
Finished and it is working, I now have my quicco mi.1 powered up sending midi over bluetooth to my ipad. I have to admit this is a great little device and a nice addition for expanding the portable 500 setup.
Finally the steps to achieve this are straightforward but difficult. First you download the service manual, do a full dissasembly of the machine till you reached the midi board. You take it out and patch a little cable from the pin 2 of the midi output to the end of the c501.Warning, the c501 is an smt part and you have to solder carefully to the one side of it. Now the pin 2 is grounded and project achieved. Reassemble your machine and have fun.

still_awake wrote:Btw, I just started fixing the midi out of the 500 so it can drive outboard gear. (I remember but can't find, a thread of someone not being able to power up his wireless midi adapter from the 500. Which is true)
So if anyone wants the fix and knows how to use a soldering iron tell me so I post the full details.
It's not an easy fix though I have to say.

Nice!!! Im pretty damn good with soldering. I got a maudio cable and it works good, what did u do solder a power wire to the midi, thats genius!!!! Is this Jamon???

check the edit I just posted . Btw I'm not Jamon and I really doubt he had any knowledge about electronics. I'm 22 years old and bought my mpc about 3 months ago . Haha funny though.

Sick!!!!!