Reverse engineering PhantomX

[BlackVega]

Some of you know of the existence of PhantomX CPU acceleration board for X68000 that uses Raspberry Pi and overclocks real machines but the problem is it is rather costly at 29000 yen but most importantly it hasn't been available to buy for a long time but I had an idea- how about reverse engineering it?
https://gimons.base.shop/items/81141238

As far as I can tell this board is very simple- it only has a few voltage translators but it also has some GAL chips. However the firmware files are still provided right here:
http://retropc.net/gimons/phantomx/firmware_update.html

So naturally I had somewhat of a dirty idea to just reverse engineer it because it shouldn't be hard for anyone to do. Well, personally I would but I don't have this board. Is there anyone that would be up for the task? All that is needed to be done is multimeter the chips and draw a schematic, that's it. Please let me know what you think about this

[z964]

The person who made that denies a software license to any but the original purchaser, so if a clone used his firmware it'd technically be copyright violation.

[neko68k]

I definitely strongly don't support pissing off gimons. You're welcome to develop your own accelerator and truthfully most people won't benefit from one in the first place.

[kendrick]

Weighing in here. Although the use of Raspberry Pi boards as replacement or enhancement components in older devices is pretty widespread, it still generally counts as a hobbyist activity rather than a mass-market technology application. This is by way of saying I don't know if international legal precedent related to backward engineering applies. It was legal in the 1980s for the home computer 'clone' devices to exist because IBM's monopoly on 8-bit DOS computers was a clear burden for some consumers and businesses. It would be hard to argue that not having any one X68000 CPU accelerator as an open source project has a similar financial or social impact, given that it's not nearly as much industry or money at stake.

Expanding on what neko68k has said, it is probably okay for anybody to develop their own CPU accelerator. But it's hard to defend the idea that someone else's product is what should be backward engineered. If there's a need for a competing product in the small X68000 marketplace, then my view is that it should stand apart with its own features or capabilities, and not just be a literal clone of an existing product. That might be a tough sell, but as everybody knows you don't lose ownership or copyright just because your product isn't available.

[leonk]

Please don't do this. You might not have been around the X68K community as long as others here to remember the other hardware devices he has done to help the community. Things like FDX68 and mostly importantly RaSCSI. His work on RaSCSI is directly responsible to us having BlueSCSI and its variants.

If you rip off makers, you'll find no more future projects.

[aotta]

I agree that it would not be proper to use firwmare on hardware other than his, since Gimons has expressly forbidden it, and I join leonk in the thanks for creating raScsi and publishing the information that enabled blueScsi to be created... but if his latest creations are no more public and not accessible to non-Japanese people, I think he is more to be condemned for racism than congratulated! (I have been trying to buy a fdx68 for years!!) LOL

[NFG]

but if his latest creations are no more public and not accessible to non-Japanese people, I think he is more to be condemned for racism than congratulated!

I can understand the sentiment but my friend, no.   There are a lot of reasons a person won't sell to another.  Most Americans won't sell to overseas buyers either.  They're not racist (I mean, lately that's a bit harder to say with certainty) but they do exist in a system that makes overseas sales a risky PITA.

So no.  Gimons is free to do what he wants, as are we all.  And he's free to do what he wants without any of us casting aspersions on his character, or trying to steal his work.

That's offical policy around here.  👍

[leonk]

I think he is more to be condemned for racism than congratulated! (I have been trying to buy a fdx68 for years!!) LOL

Your lack of knowledge on how to acquire his products does not make him a racist. He's no different than the thousands of sellers on Yahoo Auctions Japan that only sell into the Japanese domestic market.

I own FDX68, RaSCSI, and many other "only to be sold in Japan" devices. I successfully purchased them using services like shipjp.com which allowed me to purchase all these items using a local Japanese address. Using these type of services (buyee, ZenMarket, etc) is how most people here got their X68000 as well.

Also, a couple months ago he had a special run (posted on X) for International customers. Those that were interested e-mailed him and he shipped worldwide. This is a product that's still made and supported.

[aotta]

I'm sorry but I would like to confirm that my call of racism was ironic, nothing personal against Gimons.

I just wanted to clarify that, in general, I prefer to thank those who run their projects in open source and offer them to the community of enthusiasts. I found everyday on ebay people selling the multicart I designed and published on Github (PiRTO II, PiColeco, PicoPac, etc.), but I never made a dollar.
I do it for the passion of retrocomputers that I love to share with other enthusiasts.
I don't think I could get rich from these gadgets (as I don't think Gimons got rich either with his ones, especially not being able to sell outside Japan).

Also on buying in Japan or USA I don't totally agree: I have used buyee.jp several times as a service for buying in yahoo japan, and also bought many items from the US. It's expensive but it's up to you.
So, I think it is true that there are problems with taxation or so on, but I remain of the opinion that those who don't want to sell abroad do so mainly because of their own personal (and IMHO not very agreeable) choice.

I have created the X68KFDPi project (https://github.com/aotta/X68KFDPi) that handles X68K floppies, and I have been thinking for a while about adding Shugart emulation so that I can have a complete floppy replacement like FDX68.
I don't know if and when I will make such an upgrade, but in the meantime someone else might think about it and make it available to everyone.
Without the need to use Gimons' firmware.

[leonk]

I don't know if and when I will make such an upgrade, but in the meantime someone else might think about it and make it available to everyone.
Without the need to use Gimons' firmware.

Gimons' hardware is pretty much nothing more than level converters. The "magic" is all in the software; and he put in years developing it. Even if he makes nothing more than beer money doing so, that's his personal choice just like to was your choice to open-source your devices. There are many examples of people doing stuff just for profit (Everdrive) and that's totally fine.