Prevue Channel System Disk

[AriX]

The select code on our dumped ROM is NJJR6 (btw that's where that came from) and I was initially surprised to see them so similar, hence my thought that it wasn't a unique serial number, rather a bunch of letters that indicate what the system does and does not do. perhaps some of the letters correspond to the capabilities of the box, hence Jrs and Srs are different, and, potentially cable providers. I can imagine large cable cos would want their EPGs showing the same stuff, but probably had many headends and many boxes. The title being broadcast makes sense as UV could control their boxes, they would show the correct title for the provider they leased the box to. This would require some part of the select code to be unique to the box or group of boxes though. Nonetheless, surprised to see JRMV4 which is very different!!

Right, I would guess that they would assign serial numbers/select codes based on both the type of device (JR for Juniors, SR or A1 for Seniors, and A2 for Prevues/late Seniors) and common regions and/or cable companies in order to set common timezones and title messages. Perhaps the NNJR6 thing is just a typo (they wrote it wrong the first time and then incorrectly typed what they had inaccurately written down the first time maybe)... Also, JRMV4 may even refer to an entirely different unit, since the eBay seller had a whole lot and my have gotten some pages mixed up (the pages were part of different sets, as you can see, the last one in the PDF is 1 of 16 and the rest aren't included).

Note also the code in our dumped rom is actually BNJJR6($00)($00)($00)($00)($00), hence the hearts after the serial number in the atari output ($00 = a heart char in its charset). The B seems to have a special significance and is considered not part of the select code it seems, and is sometimes displayed as B:NJJR6 Perhaps Amigas were G:, just going on what we've seen on youtube ect, and what you posted. I will check the assembler code again to see if I can find where the significance of that letter comes in.

The B was perhaps used internally for something, but it doesn't seem to be matched against serial data going in, so it's probably meant for something else. The Amigas do not have a prefix at all, the entire string is the entire select code (i.e. A22290, A22050, GA24005, where the G before the final one is part of the select code and not some sort of prefix).

As mentioned before the addressing code allows the broadcast to contain a contain a "?" in any given char position as a wildcard for that digit, and a * if there's no need to check any further in the serial code, both of which allow updates to be broadcast to a subset of (or all) EPG boxes. Perhaps therefore the select code is structured to denote certain features enabled or not. So far the codes we've been generating (manually or with the cgi scripts) are all with the * code to address any box that's listening.

Right, I would assume as you suggested above, UV would give some cable companies common prefixes so that they could issue them all F and T commands that were the same.

[LocalH]

Hot damn. A copy of this finally got dumped? Bad-ass.

Too bad it wasn't the earlier software, prior to the blue grid. Still, bad-ass.

I wonder how well the software would run on my A2000 (non-Prevue). It has a SuperGen 2000S genlock in it, but it's not properly working. It can output Amiga graphics to composite or Y/C by themselves, but won't properly key them over incoming video. For this purpose, that likely won't matter one bit, since we don't really have any video to put through them, nor do (I think, anyway) we know exactly what, if any, informatin the system retrieves from the VBI. Do we know exactly what Amiga hardware configuration the software requires (aside from the Prevue support hardware, I mean CPU, RAM, and the like). Every Amiga-based EPG and Prevue video I have seen shows it running on a 1.3 ROM system, even in the later days before they moved to Windows boxes, long after the introduction of 2.x and even 3.x for a little while (I think there were still some Amigas in service in the late 90s, weren't there). AriX, what hardware config are you currently emulating to get the progress you have now? I'm hoping this will at least run somewhat on an accelerated machine, as my A2000 doesn't have a functioning 68000 chip, but is fitted with an '030 accelerator.

Any one of the few people to possess the ADF mind bunging it my way? I've dreamed of having this software for damn near 20 years, and when I get a chance I'll definitely hook up the old A2000 and try it out. For shiggles, I might even try it out on my A3000 (which only recognizes it's 1MB of chip RAM, but not it's 3MB of fast RAM).

Also, has anyone possessing the ADF tried to salvage deleted files from the disk? Depending on how often updates happened, how they were implemented in the software, and how much of the system they touched, there might be prior data somewhere on that disk. Someone send me a copy of it, and I'll run it through DiskSalv, see what I can find. If that hasn't already been done, of course.

One more thing to consider doing - allow the software to boot up in WinUAE, and at the point where the error messages are on screen, dump RAM to a savestate. Should be able to look for strings that way

[AriX]

Hot damn. A copy of this finally got dumped? Bad-ass.

Too bad it wasn't the earlier software, prior to the blue grid. Still, bad-ass.

I wonder how well the software would run on my A2000 (non-Prevue). It has a SuperGen 2000S genlock in it, but it's not properly working. It can output Amiga graphics to composite or Y/C by themselves, but won't properly key them over incoming video. For this purpose, that likely won't matter one bit, since we don't really have any video to put through them, nor do (I think, anyway) we know exactly what, if any, informatin the system retrieves from the VBI. Do we know exactly what Amiga hardware configuration the software requires (aside from the Prevue support hardware, I mean CPU, RAM, and the like). Every Amiga-based EPG and Prevue video I have seen shows it running on a 1.3 ROM system, even in the later days before they moved to Windows boxes, long after the introduction of 2.x and even 3.x for a little while (I think there were still some Amigas in service in the late 90s, weren't there). AriX, what hardware config are you currently emulating to get the progress you have now? I'm hoping this will at least run somewhat on an accelerated machine, as my A2000 doesn't have a functioning 68000 chip, but is fitted with an '030 accelerator.

Any one of the few people to possess the ADF mind bunging it my way? I've dreamed of having this software for damn near 20 years, and when I get a chance I'll definitely hook up the old A2000 and try it out. For shiggles, I might even try it out on my A3000 (which only recognizes it's 1MB of chip RAM, but not it's 3MB of fast RAM).

Also, has anyone possessing the ADF tried to salvage deleted files from the disk? Depending on how often updates happened, how they were implemented in the software, and how much of the system they touched, there might be prior data somewhere on that disk. Someone send me a copy of it, and I'll run it through DiskSalv, see what I can find. If that hasn't already been done, of course.

One more thing to consider doing - allow the software to boot up in WinUAE, and at the point where the error messages are on screen, dump RAM to a savestate. Should be able to look for strings that way

Hi LocalH,

See the new thread I just posted

Also, salvaging deleted files was one of the first things I thought of when I got the image... I used DiskSalv, but it didn't seem to recover anything that I couldn't already see. I'm an Amiga n00b for the most part, so if you want to give it a try, feel free, and I hope you find something

(ADF sent)

[LocalH]

The reason I think it was automatically updated over the air is because it is a Prevue disk labeled 8.0.7 or whatever, even though the contents seem to be TV Guide and a later software revision. They obviously didn't just send them a new diskette, it was updated somehow.

Just for the record, going to reply to this now that I have a bit of experience with the software. I don't know how much later the actual code is, as I don't know what version was in use when branded as Prevue Guide. It's obviously more or less the same software but with new graphic assets. Plus, you have to remember - even though I'm pretty sure based on the hardware pics I've seen that updates were ultimately done over RS-232, Amiga disks only hold 880KB, and the main ESQ executable is only 132KB - after transmission and demodulated, over a 2400bps link (as this version of the software reports on the diagnostic screen) it would only take 450 seconds to download a completely new executable (that's slightly less than 8 minutes, easy to do at 2 or 3 in the morning when noone is watching).

[AriX]

The reason I think it was automatically updated over the air is because it is a Prevue disk labeled 8.0.7 or whatever, even though the contents seem to be TV Guide and a later software revision. They obviously didn't just send them a new diskette, it was updated somehow.

Just for the record, going to reply to this now that I have a bit of experience with the software. I don't know how much later the actual code is, as I don't know what version was in use when branded as Prevue Guide. It's obviously more or less the same software but with new graphic assets. Plus, you have to remember - even though I'm pretty sure based on the hardware pics I've seen that updates were ultimately done over RS-232, Amiga disks only hold 880KB, and the main ESQ executable is only 132KB - after transmission and demodulated, over a 2400bps link (as this version of the software reports on the diagnostic screen) it would only take 450 seconds to download a completely new executable (that's slightly less than 8 minutes, easy to do at 2 or 3 in the morning when noone is watching).

Judging by multiple first-hand reports from UVSG people including the head of software distribution in the early 90s, as well as multiple strings inside startup scripts and things, software updates were definitely done over satellite.

[LocalH]

I just noticed something...posting it here so it shows up as a new post without doubleposting...

The select code the software uses is GA24005, right? Well, the photo of the back of the disk has GA24512 written on it. I wonder what that's all about...

[AriX]

I just noticed something...posting it here so it shows up as a new post without doubleposting...

The select code the software uses is GA24005, right? Well, the photo of the back of the disk has GA24512 written on it. I wonder what that's all about...

Yeah, I was wondering that too. In all likelihood, it was probably just changed at some point or the floppy was transferred to another machine.