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Post by elmer on Jan 29, 2022 19:37:12 GMT
Yes, I am talking about taking over a FX-BMP and forcing it be a dev unit. But with a self-destruct override to make it a normal (but empty) one again, in case you need to use it as a FX-BMP. It *looks* like this should be achievable, the boot-code is run in a way that allows it to return and let the console continue to boot normally. But it'll take some assembly-language and special link and startup code in order to have even a *chance* of working in practice. Then you'd also need some new functionality in liberis to even be able to create a CD that lets you write this to your FX-BMP (without screwing up the filesystem).
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Post by dshadoff on Dec 4, 2022 3:21:34 GMT
Just to follow up on this and clarify a couple of things...
Based on what I've read, the internal backup memory cannot be made to auto-boot - only the FX-BMP memory, and the FX-SCSI slot.
The FX-BMP memory can be made to boot, but as elmer has mentioned, this makes the BMP cartridge unusable for anything else until it randomly decays after the power is off and betteries removed (and internal super capacitor is drained). Other than the PC-FX itself, there are currently no methods of reprogramming these carts, and if the PC-FX boots the cartridge code blindly, you won't be able to load the program to erase/reprogram the cart. (It seems to me that there could conceivably be a controller key "override", but I haven't found any traces of one yet).
The other possible way out would be for the program stored on the cartridge to contain the code for reprogramming itself (or at least removing the boot information).
The real value of this cartridge-boot feature would be to have non-volatile cartridges for specific purposes, such as diagnostics (especially if the CDROM drive isn't working). Or perhaps they thought that there might eventually be a reason to distribute software on cartridge.
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