[flashrom] IBM SurePOS 700 4800-783 support

[Stefan Tauner]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:17:19 -0400
Jason_Vannest at abercrombie.com wrote:

> If I'm reading the flashrom site correctly this is one of the flash chips 
> that flashrom has support for already.  So that might be a plus.

Yes, the flash chip itself wont be a problem.

There is a service manual for the POS located at
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/retail/pubs/hw/4800_surepos700/btd5_4800-723-743-783_hsg_mst.pdf
and it mentions a "backup bios" in the service processor section. That
could complicate things further (or help you out if something fails if
you are very lucky, but usually it make things worse for us).
The remainder of the document is not very helpful (targeted at users
not developers).

> > I'd venture a guess that we can do this before IBM can
> > even give you a quote.
> 
> What kind of information would you want?  I have pretty solid connections 
> with IBM I may be able to get questions answered about this.

A schematic that contains the data path between the southbridge and the
flash chip as well as its relation to the Renesas IC would indicate if we
have to take care about the Renesas at all. Any additional information
regarding the BIOS upgrade process (e.g. if the version of the Renesas'
firmware has to be kept in sync with the BIOS) or the service
processor's interaction with the flash chip would be very welcome too.

Above all we need to work on the support for the VIA chipset (VT8251),
but IBM won't be able to help us with that. I have no news regarding
that.
-- 
Kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Stefan Tauner