Files
riojoy/rio-firmware
CydandClaude Fable 5 f7c16f579d 125000 bench: RX overrun confirmed (NAK=1082, lamps dead) — CPU is the wall
Board->PC near-perfect at 125k (framing 5) while PC->board shredded by
packet length (2-byte polls 60% delivered, 4-byte lamp cmds ~2/3 NAKed
as checksum-corrupt): the 2MHz HC11 RX ISR can't drain back-to-back
bytes at 80us. MAX232 acquitted; zero wedges even at 40% inbound loss.
62500 image built as the sweet-spot candidate (RIOv4_2_patched_62500.bin).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-18 12:57:51 -05:00
..

RIO board firmware

  • RIOv4_2.bin — RIO cockpit I/O board firmware v4.2, dumped 2026-07-04 from one of our own boards' EPROM: an AMD AM27C512-150 (64K x 8 UV EPROM, 150ns — the image fills it exactly). sha256 60a88718835c654b6135dbec7721c40ef99dca07df2ad4b57eedeb24037a5f73. For the eventual patched burn: a pin-compatible Winbond W27C512 (electrically erasable, TL866-friendly) drops straight into the socket; the original AMD chip gets labeled and preserved unmodified.

First-look analysis (from the image alone, confirmed on hardware)

  • MCU: Toshiba TMP68HC11 (read off the chip; the code fingerprint agrees — 6800-family opcodes with writes into the 68HC11 internal register block at $10xx).
  • Memory map: image is FF up to 0xC000; 16KB of code occupies $C000-$FFFF (EPROM mapped at the top of the HC11 address space).
  • Startup at $C000: SEI; LDS #$8000; STAA $1024 (TMSK2); STAA $1022 (TMSK1); ... then a long JSR init chain — textbook HC11 bring-up.
  • Vector table ($FFD6-$FFFF, big-endian):
    • $FFFE RESET → $C000
    • $FFD6 SCI (serial) → $D630 — the entry point of the board's receive/protocol interrupt handler. The suspected board-side DISABLE_AND_DIE-style wedge (see RIO-NOTES.md: the board mirrors the game's PCSPAK state machine, and mash-stress leaves the reply path dead while the button/event path stays alive) is reachable from here.
    • $FFE4$C1B2, $FFE6$C18E (timer output-compares); most other vectors → $DB07..$DB3D stubs.

Why this exists

The remaining RIO reliability issue is board-side: under button-mash stress the board's reply/analog state machine wedges (RX dead, TX alive; a button press or power cycle revives it), reproduced identically on two different USB serial adapters. The game-side half of the protocol was binary-patched for tolerance (BTL4OPT patches v2-v4); the board firmware is the other half. Plan (RIO-NOTES.md "Board firmware patch plan"): disassemble as 68HC11 from $C000 with the vector entries as roots, find the SCI state machine (protocol constants FC=ACK FD=NAK FE=RESTART FF=IDLE, idle-reload-4 patterns), patch the early-ACK/error wedge path or widen its window, burn a new EPROM, keep this original safe.

Patched images (built by make_patch.py; see RIOv4_2-ANALYSIS.md)

  • RIOv4_2_patched.bin — the reply-latch wedge fix, 23 bytes changed. sha256 3fc8170caf60e2580641724ff995176c93c4f2e706f31487beded8233142493f.
  • RIOv4_2_patched_31250.bin (make_patch.py --baud31250) — wedge fix
    • SCI retuned 9600 → 31250 baud (one more byte, $D62B: 30→02). sha256 9f866cf353d04906e1d3e3847b6375eaae251c987b656f68f093e61ba1bd545b. Bench/RIOJoy-only until the native games get baud patches; needs an FTDI-class adapter (16550s can't make 31250). Test tools take --baud 31250.