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#321650 - 23/04/2009 18:59 Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software
HideawayStudio
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Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Hello All,

Hugo suggested I ask you guys (esp. Pete/Mike) how I go about installing the consumer distro on one of the original prototype Rio Centrals (housed in a perspex case for the S/W dev team at Sonic Blue) which a kind purveyor of fine quality junk brought to me the other day (PCA) smile

The main issue is that the unit appears to be loaded with some form of developers image and hence won't pickup consumer upgrades via CDROM.

Hugo seems to think that the hardware should be close enough to the production version to run a consumer image.


Edited by HideawayStudio (23/04/2009 19:02)
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#321653 - 23/04/2009 19:24 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA

Yeah, it should load up a consumer ISO image just fine. Isn't there a "restore to as new" feature on its troubleshooting menu?

Is your problem:

- You don't have the consumer ISO image to burn onto a CD and need to know where to get it?
- There isn't a "restore to as new" feature on the developer build it's currently running, thus can't install the image?
- Both of the above?
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#321655 - 23/04/2009 19:29 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: tfabris]
HideawayStudio
new poster

Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Hi Tony,

The problem seems to be that there seems to be no way I've come across to force the unit to pickup an upgrade via CD. I downloaded the consumer distro off the Rio website and copied it to a CD but no luck. The S/W running on this unit seems to be short on features.

I presume the disk doesn't feature a boot block as I just copied the files over to a blank disk??
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#321656 - 23/04/2009 19:35 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
When you got the file from the Rio web site, was it one of these?

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/support/rio/product.asp?prodID=100

Did you get the one WITH or WITHOUT the CDDB? I have a vague recollection that the one with the CDDB was corrupted and only the non-CDDB version of the file was actually good. They were supposed to have corrected it but I don't recall if they ever did.

Anyway, when you go to the player's "About" menu, what version does it say?
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#321659 - 23/04/2009 19:37 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Originally Posted By: HideawayStudio
I downloaded the consumer distro off the Rio website and copied it to a CD but no luck.


When you say "copied it to a CD", do you just mean you put the files on a disc? You can't do that... it's an ISO image and must be burned using the ISO-image-burning feature of your burner software. If you just copied the files to a recordable disc, then of course the player isn't detecting it, the disc isn't formatted right.
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#321664 - 23/04/2009 19:56 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: tfabris]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: tfabris
If you just copied the files to a recordable disc, then of course the player isn't detecting it, the disc isn't formatted right.

And you can tell whether this is the problem by putting the CD into your PC and looking at the files on it. If you see files called "upgrader" and "upgrade_file", plus a bunch of subfolders including "sources", then the ISO writing process was successful.

The files on the web site are zip files, each of which contains a single ISO file which is the CD image.

If you've already got that sorted and the player software still isn't offering you upgrades, there is a way to force a CD upgrade: put the CD in the drive, switch the power off, and switch it on while holding down the Menu button. (Ahem. At least, I think it's the Menu button. If that doesn't work, try a different button!)

Peter

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#321665 - 23/04/2009 19:57 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: tfabris]
HideawayStudio
new poster

Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Nope - the disk has been burnt using an ISO image writer - the weird thing is that if you put the disk in the machine during bootup it spits it out after a few seconds - no other disks eg. any music CD or data CD do this.

I think the issue may be that the OS is either too early or too broken to pick these updates up. The OS doesn't look anything like a consumer Rio Central.


Edited by HideawayStudio (23/04/2009 19:58)
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#321666 - 23/04/2009 20:01 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: tfabris]
HideawayStudio
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Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
It's without CDDB
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#321667 - 23/04/2009 20:02 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: peter]
HideawayStudio
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Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Yup - these files are on the disk
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#321668 - 23/04/2009 20:08 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: peter]
HideawayStudio
new poster

Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Originally Posted By: peter
Originally Posted By: tfabris
If you just copied the files to a recordable disc, then of course the player isn't detecting it, the disc isn't formatted right.

And you can tell whether this is the problem by putting the CD into your PC and looking at the files on it. If you see files called "upgrader" and "upgrade_file", plus a bunch of subfolders including "sources", then the ISO writing process was successful.

The files on the web site are zip files, each of which contains a single ISO file which is the CD image.

If you've already got that sorted and the player software still isn't offering you upgrades, there is a way to force a CD upgrade: put the CD in the drive, switch the power off, and switch it on while holding down the Menu button. (Ahem. At least, I think it's the Menu button. If that doesn't work, try a different button!)

Peter


No - sadly I've tried booting holding each button in turn with no luck - it always spits the disk out during boot but interestingly not if I insert the CD after boot.
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#321669 - 23/04/2009 20:10 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: HideawayStudio
I think the issue may be that the OS is either too early or too broken to pick these updates up. The OS doesn't look anything like a consumer Rio Central.

OK, if it's really old -- old enough that holding down Menu doesn't work -- then you need to upgrade it as if it was a car-player. If your Jupiter prototype is that old, it'll have a serial port. If you're not familiar with upgrading car-players over a serial port, here it is in lavish detail. You need the same EmpegUpgrade.exe program mentioned in that guide, but instead of downloading car2-whatever.upgrade from the website, you should take the file "upgrade_file" from the root of your CD, rename it "jupiter.upgrade", and use that.

The Emplode installer on the actual Jupiter CD doesn't include EmpegUpgrade.exe. You need the car-player Emplode to get that.

At least, I hope that'll work. I can't remember if we had to change anything in EmpegUpgrade.exe, relative to the car-player one, to get Jupiters to work. If we did, that changed version won't be available anywhere. Personally I have my fingers crossed that the holding-down-Menu thing works.

Peter

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#321670 - 23/04/2009 20:14 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: peter]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Alternatively, get Patrick to bring it with him the next time he visits Cambridge: I can swap your hard drive into my Jupiter, install the software, and swap it back. That should work whatever is in your Jupiter's flash. Or if Patrick has a working Jupiter or prototype, you could do that yourselves.

Peter

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#321672 - 23/04/2009 20:14 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: peter]
HideawayStudio
new poster

Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
There is a debug port installed on one of the pcb headers - do you mean this or something on the back panel?

I have an Empeg and have updated via serial.
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#321673 - 23/04/2009 20:16 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: HideawayStudio
I think the issue may be that the OS is either too early or too broken to pick these updates up. The OS doesn't look anything like a consumer Rio Central.

Oh, and maybe you could take a couple of pictures of your current software running, before updating it? It sounds like your Jupiter is, as Bill and Ted would say, most historical...

Peter

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#321674 - 23/04/2009 20:21 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: HideawayStudio
There is a debug port installed on one of the pcb headers - do you mean this or something on the back panel?

That's the one, yes. If you fix Hyperterminal (or preferably a better terminal program) to it, 115200 8N1, you should be able to see it boot. Actually, do that first, if you don't mind, and post the log. It'll help figure out what there currently is on your player.

Actually, thinking about it a bit more, if you can get a shell on the player using Hyperterminal -- if you can reach the shell prompt -- then you should be able to issue the Linux commands to mount the upgrade CD and directly run the "upgrader" program from it, which might be less hassle than mucking with EmpegUpgrade.exe.

Peter

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#321675 - 23/04/2009 20:25 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: peter]
HideawayStudio
new poster

Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Holy Crap!! We're in! - it turned out that the problem was that the eject button was damaged and permanently down - hence why it was spitting disks out. I disconnected the switch header and held down one of the buttons - not menu - but not sure what it is as none of the buttons are labelled on this thing!

Are the screens bigger on the dev units? - it looks bigger than the consumer version??

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#321676 - 23/04/2009 20:32 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: HideawayStudio
Holy Crap!! We're in! - it turned out that the problem was that the eject button was damaged and permanently down - hence why it was spitting disks out. I disconnected the switch header and held down one of the buttons - not menu - but not sure what it is as none of the buttons are labelled on this thing!

O cool.

Quote:
Are the screens bigger on the dev units? - it looks bigger than the consumer version??

I'm pretty sure the screens are the same. It's very distinctive and is the same unit used on the Amstrad Emailer and the Maytag Neptune. IIRC there's a "non-displaying" border round the screen, which the retail case covers up.

Peter

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#321678 - 23/04/2009 20:40 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: peter]
HideawayStudio
new poster

Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Yes - of course, that makes sense.

Many thanks for helping out. I can see how you add tracks from CD but can I do the same from a memory stick?

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#321679 - 23/04/2009 20:43 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: HideawayStudio
Many thanks for helping out. I can see how you add tracks from CD but can I do the same from a memory stick?

No, sadly not, though you can use data CDs full of MP3s as well as music CDs. Or you can use Emplode over USB from your PC to put music on.

Peter

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#321680 - 23/04/2009 20:48 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: peter]
HideawayStudio
new poster

Registered: 23/04/2009
Posts: 10
Loc: Somerset, UK
Oh of course - it's just like the Empeg - thats fine. How do I find out how big the HD is on this thing? It seems to be quite happily ripping a CD at the moment.

BTW - I don't believe we've met, I'm Dan Wilson, a very long time friend of Patrick A., James C., Hugo F., Rob V. and Toby D.....
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#321681 - 23/04/2009 21:01 Re: Rio Central Prototype in Need of Consumer Software [Re: HideawayStudio]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: HideawayStudio
Oh of course - it's just like the Empeg - thats fine. How do I find out how big the HD is on this thing?

Menu, About this Rio Central, scroll down to the bottom. Production ones were 40GB, but the prototypes could be anything. Like most equipment that old, it doesn't like drives over 128GB.

Quote:
BTW - I don't believe we've met, I'm Dan Wilson, a very long time friend of Patrick A., James C., Hugo F., Rob V. and Toby D...

Ah, the usual suspects... hi, I'm Peter Hartley, I met Hugo when he was doing some contracting work in Cambridge, and met the others via Hugo after he'd moved here...

Peter

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