Opening a locked container or: guessing ASCII sequences

[@japhigu]

Hello there folks,

I found an AWESOME electrojunk dealer in Shin-Kiba who also sells over yahoo auctions and they have everything in electronics that existed in Japan since our mothers were born (or something like that)

I went there and I found this:

[Nava Whiteford]

OMG that looks awesome. Also how much was it?

Do you have the address or the shop?

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[@japhigu]

Due to layouting limitations this is the remainder of the OP:

As you can see, it says *read startup card* - giving me the impression that it needs something like an auhtorization card to enable functionality (as if the key weren't enough)

Having failed to find specific information on the JIS magstripe standard (which this machine is built for I think (putting in EU magstripe cards or My amex produced no output, JSI cards at least give an ostensible  beep))

Do any of you with industry experience in any field know what the initialization sequence might be? I would input something if I just knew what.

[@japhigu]

I paid a whopping 990 yen for it :)

[Richard Frankum]

Can't find a lot about the machine, searches just pick up auctions it was sold at.

Here's a patent that Prime was granted for it though, maybe it mentions what kind of card you'd need.

http://patent.astamuse.com/ja/granted/JP/No/3940612 

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 1:23 PM, @japhigu <duald...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello there folks,

I found an AWESOME electrojunk dealer in Shin-Kiba who also sells over yahoo auctions and they have everything in electronics that existed in Japan since our mothers were born (or something like that)

--
--Richard Frankum

[@japhigu]

Thanks Richard, your knowledge of Japanese is one great help!

[@japhigu]

What I failed to mention: The machine has a two parallel Ports (or a r232, didnt look closely enough) - are there any probing experts coming next tuesday? I have zero knowledge of how to communicate with the device (save for spamming it with some cmds using hterm or comparable)

That might also help somehow - I think that initialization procedures are similiar across disciplines - like repeat passwords, so to speak.

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:23:52 PM UTC+9, @japhigu wrote:

[Luis Felipe RM]

On 09/05/2012 09:23 PM, @japhigu wrote:
> I found an AWESOME electrojunk dealer in Shin-Kiba who also sells over
> yahoo auctions and they have everything in electronics that existed in
> Japan since our mothers were born (or something like that)

@jahingu: would you be willing to share the address?
I am looking for a 1980's Japanese MSX machine, they might have it.

[Richard Frankum]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:15 PM, Luis Felipe RM <unix...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/05/2012 09:23 PM, @japhigu wrote:

> I am looking for a 1980's Japanese MSX machine, they might have it.

Awesome. I'd forgotten this platform even existed.
http://auctions.search.yahoo.co.jp/search?ei=UTF-8&p=MSX

--
--Richard Frankum

[Nava Whiteford]

Interesting if you're in to that sort of thing:

http://archive.org/details/Japanese1985

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[@japhigu]

This is the yahoo auctions account:

 

http://openuser.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/user/miyabi_status

 

Location: http://www.geocities.jp/jumbo_status/statusnewmap.pdf

[@japhigu]

Anyone with hardcore probing experience over parallel ?

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:23:52 PM UTC+9, @japhigu wrote:

[Akiba]

Yes, I have hardcore probing experience. Oh…over parallel. That kind of hardcore probing. Never mind.

 

FYI, you can prob just get an arduino to sniff the 8-bit bus signals and the special wires and dump them to a terminal.

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Wireless

Web: http://www.freaklabs.org

Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

 

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[Taylan Ayken]

I have an Open Bench Logic Sniffer, you can use it if you need it. Also we have one at THS.

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From: "@japhigu" <duald...@gmail.com>
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 7, 2012 11:16 PM

Subject: [THS:20103] Re: Opening a locked container or: guessing ASCII sequences

--

[@japhigu]

As I have no experience at this at all, I can only hypothesize about where to capture the signals. Is it typical for a device like this to output a response on parallel at the same time as it outputs something on the screen, i.e. when the firmware displays "FAIL" can I expect a "FAIL" on the port without establishing a connection of some sort (telling there firmware there is something waiting for a signal from the device) ?

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:23:52 PM UTC+9, @japhigu wrote:

[Nava Whiteford]

Your best bet is to try attaching something to the serial port first.

The parallel port seems a bit odd. It looks like a Centronics port
which would indicate that it functions as a printer. Though why that
would be the case I don't know.

Open it up and see what's inside?

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[Kalin KOZHUHAROV]

On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Nava Whiteford <n...@sgenomics.org> wrote:
> Your best bet is to try attaching something to the serial port first.
>
> The parallel port seems a bit odd. It looks like a Centronics port
> which would indicate that it functions as a printer. Though why that
> would be the case I don't know.
>

I bet it is a line printer to keep track of encoded cards.

You need a master card (not Master Card, LoL) that is read (think of
it as old punch cards - it stores the code/data), then you start
swiping blanks to encode whatever was programmed on the master card.

No idea about the format of the master card though.

Kalin.

[dualdrinker]

Kalin: Clever thinking. So there would have to be some sort init sequence on the card which identifies it as a master card...the thing is: this encoder has a keyboard - copying the master cards content does not make much sense fromn the versatility standpoint. THough I think it has a memory for reading of a card for copying purposes.

 

To be clear: I am talking about this: http://www.justanswer.com/uploads/Claws224/2009-04-15_010433_Parallel_Printer_Cable.jpg

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[dualdrinker]

And there is no serial port.

[Nava Whiteford]

Yea the thing that confused me was that it's Centronics rather than D type. The Centronics
end was usually the printer end, rather than the "printing" end. Which I found odd...

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[Nava Whiteford]

I was looking at this picture:

http://auctions.c.yimg.jp/img329.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/users/2/9/2/7/miyabi_status-img600x450-1323939046nbydv291762.jpg

Isn't that a 25D type female port next to the Centronics? I can't really tell from the low res picture. If it is, I'd
assume it was a serial port:

http://suntekpc.com/htm-2/cable-serial-cb-9dbf-25dbm-xxx-serial-at-modem.htm

If there's a way of sending commands to this thing from a computer, I'd guess it's most likely serial. Could learn a lot
by taking the top off and looking for a MAX232 or similar...

[dualdrinker]

Well Nava you lost me there :)

[dualdrinker]

Good hunting, Nava. Will try to scavenge some tools from the lab and see if I can open it. I hope they didn't of the words ''proprietary screw head" in Japan back then....

[Nava Whiteford]

The connector on the right of this picture goes in the printer.
The connector on the left goes into the computer.

http://www.gttkc.com/shop/images/parallel-cable.jpg

The AD40E looks like it has the connector that ususally sits on the printer (on the right):

http://auctions.c.yimg.jp/img329.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/users/2/9/2/7/miyabi_status-img600x450-1323939046nbydv291762.jpg

Which I thought was odd.

[dualdrinker]

Well, I still think it should all work without input from a computer. I'll bring that thing in tomorrow. Hopefully we can get someplace. Anyone from this thread coming in 2morrow? It is my last tuesday and thus last HS-day in Japan :(

[Torsten Wagner]

I believe you can't make a good guess just from the ports.
They simply might used that connector because it was very common at that time.
Open the device and see if the soldered cable fits a usual LPT port setting.
Maybe you will be surprised to see only 2 cables are soldered to the
port, and its purpose was completely different from what you expect.
LPT was well known to be usable as a quick and dirty I/O port. It
wouldn't be the only commercial device which used the LPT port to form
its own protocol with a host PC.
All you needed was a driver which bit-banged the LPT pins as you need them.

Totti