On powering up, after a delay whilst things are initialised, the FT01 displays a blue screen with the word 'loading' filling it. This is subsequently replaced by the running on-board firmware.
As well as the usual keys of DEL, F1, F2, F4, F10 I've tried every key on the keyboard and have still failed to interrupt the loading sequence and bring up a BIOS setup screen instead.....HELP!
Unless we can get to the BIOS settings I don't see how we can run any alternative software.
I found a posting from somebody who had a Compal FT01 stolen and then recovered a few months
later. It came back with a BIOS password set. He eventually fixed this by clearing the CMOS
which is backed up by a battery - BATT2. This is can be found just under the casing adjacent
to the RAM memory. Unfortunately the battery is soldered to the board which gave him a certain
amount of grief. However I did manage
to track down some additional information and shorting out J5 should clear the CMOS.
With the front edge of the laptop towards you J5 can be found at the right hand end
of the RAM bay as shown in the photograph. It is just a couple of PCB traces that can be bridged
by a screwdriver blade or other metal object.
With the standard firmware there are two possible error messages:
boot failure error code 17 - I can't find any mass storage.
boot failure error code 4 - I can find mass storage but I don't recognise the data that is on it.
The standard firmware is setup for interaction with Sun servers and so is really of no interest to me unless there is someway we could subvert it to gain control. In my brief look so far it doesn't look like we can as, as far as I can see, the operating system is loaded from elsewhere before it accesses this flash memory.
For those who wish to use it 'as is' I tracked down copies of the user manual and the administrator's manual on the Flextronics website. (Flextronics took over complete support for the range in December 2013).
This is my current guess how the standard setup works.
The core of the operating system is embedded (maybe) in the BIOS flash chip. It is somewhere - the Pulsar hardware was easy to check and I didn't see any added memory elsewhere. I haven't had the FT01 fully apart to see what's on the motherboard. As it's a standard laptop I think it unlikely that there's an extra chip.
When the system boots the default boot device is something like the ROM FLOPPY DRIVE as identified in the Pulsar BIOS. This then loads the core of the operating system. Once loaded it searches any disk drives to find the rest of the operating system - the 'apps' and configuration information.
I have proved the 'auto search' aspect by copying the image of the supplied Flash Memory
to a Compact Flash card, removing the original flash and connecting the Compact Flash card to
the SATA socket via a CF-to-SATA adapter. The standard software ran happily as before.
The Flash memory contains two partitions: One holds the basic apps for the terminal server...
root@pike:/mnt# ls -al sdc1 total 52732 drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 16384 Jan 1 1970 . drwxrwxr-x 7 root staff 140 Aug 4 13:02 .. -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1992280 Jul 31 2012 0base.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 280 Jul 31 2012 0bootarg.ime -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10520056 Jul 31 2012 0browser.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2124376 Jul 31 2012 0client.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2001688 Jul 31 2012 0drivers.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 980584 Jul 31 2012 0initrd.ime -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6386 Jul 31 2012 0meteor.bom -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12952 Jul 31 2012 0misc.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 868456 Jul 31 2012 0network.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3272856 Jul 31 2012 0opengl.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2276872 Jul 31 2012 0os.ime -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 463144 Jul 31 2012 0oss.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1320 Jul 31 2012 0platfrm.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 162952 Jul 31 2012 0sc.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2263080 Jul 31 2012 0video.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1992280 Jul 31 2012 1base.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 280 Jul 31 2012 1bootarg.ime -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10520056 Jul 31 2012 1browser.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2124376 Jul 31 2012 1client.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2001688 Jul 31 2012 1drivers.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 980584 Jul 31 2012 1initrd.ime -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6386 Jul 31 2012 1meteor.bom -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12952 Jul 31 2012 1misc.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 868456 Jul 31 2012 1network.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3272856 Jul 31 2012 1opengl.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2276872 Jul 31 2012 1os.ime -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 463144 Jul 31 2012 1oss.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1320 Jul 31 2012 1platfrm.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 162952 Jul 31 2012 1sc.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2263080 Jul 31 2012 1video.tle -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 Jul 31 2012 factory.conf -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 80 May 8 2008 features -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 384 May 8 2008 licence
whilst the other appears to hold some security related files.
root@pike:/mnt# ls -l sdc2 total 16384 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4194304 Aug 3 12:22 0certs.img -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4194304 Aug 3 12:24 0meteor.cfg -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4194304 Jul 31 2012 1certs.img -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4194304 Jul 31 2012 1meteor.cfg
These are actually file systems that can be mounted.
root@pike:/mnt# mount -o loop sdc2/0certs.img img root@pike:/mnt# ls -l img total 6 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Feb 27 2009 ca_root drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Jul 31 2012 pending drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Jul 31 2012 pkcs12 root@pike:/mnt#
Any comments? email me. Added August 2016