HMMWV Blue Force Tracker Setup

[jake20]

Hey all,

Starting this as an informational thread for setting up a DRS BFT AN/UYK-128 system.

First off - curiosity killed the cat. I got everything hooked up, upgraded the 160GB hitachi drive to a 500GB SSD, and then upgraded from 2->4GB DDR2 RAM. System was booting up into the pre-boot setup screen just fine and showing the newly installed hardware.

I got a bit curious and entered the security enrollment screen. I entered a new admin password and it seems that I’ve now locked myself out. I figured this would prompt me for a password somewhere but the system just now sits with a black screen and red CPU light.

I pulled the CMOS battery to let it drain memory but we’ll see what happens.

In any case, the plan was to put either 32-Bit Windows 10 or some form of android on here, then install a USB GPS and Cell Modem. I could then have live location tracking in some sort of map / TAK software.

 

[jake20]

Update:

I think what I did somehow wiped and/or corrupted the bios. Regardless of that, I’ve got another unit on the way, couple hundred dollar mistake of curiosity I guess.

I’m looking into the possibility of cloning the bios flash from the new one to the old one, will see how far the research takes me.

Fun fact: this unit uses a thermoelectric peltier module to cool the CPU. In a nutshell, it’s a ceramic looking pad, power gets applied to it, one side gets super cold and one side gets super hot.

This type of cooling is extremely bizarre for a CPU, but I suppose it’s because the computer itself is a sealed unit that can’t exhaust the hot air, so instead a heat pipe transfers the heat energy from the peltier to the exterior casing.

It is also a fairly weak CPU, I noticed it didn’t even get too warm albeit at idle when it did work.

The stock system specs are:

Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz CPU (32-Bit)
2x1GB DDR2 PC2-5300S memory
160GB SATA II Hitachi HDD
40GB IDE Hitachi HDD

I figure my upgrades should be snappy enough for android:

Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz CPU (32-Bit)
2x2GB DDR2 PC2-5300S memory
500GB Crucial MX500

I’ll post more info once my replacement unit arrives.

Some more cool photos

 

[Gcelevator]

I am interested in your research, while i am not a computer expert, i might dive into it (following direcrions)

 

[jake20]

I just finished my vehicle power harness, about to test it while I wait for the new computer. Should be in next week some time.

I’m hoping that whatever I actually broke was in fact the bios chip. If so, there may be a good chance of recovering that unit as well.

I ordered an SPI flashing adapter that allows you to read / write to all standard SPI bios chips, which this seems to have.

Worst case, the chip is fried and I replace it with a new one for a few bucks, best case I’m able to flash it and go from there.

This is all very nerdy but we’ll see what comes of it. I’d hate to chuck an entire board from one of these over such a stupid issue. I threw in a pic of the bios chip.

 

[jake20]

Anyone know if any of the newer MFoCS II series BFTs have gotten into epay circulation? Specs are probably much beefier

Probably at least 5 years is my guess

Computers: Protecting the MFOCS PU

A number of Mounted Family of Computer Systems (MFOCS) processor units (PUs) have shown evidence of environmental damage. Read on to learn more.

www.psmagazine.army.mil

 

[jake20]

We have power!

 

[jake20]

I can say with ecstatic excitement that the original BFT PU I broke has been repaired!

It was 100% in fact the BIOS chip that somehow gets corrupted when entering security enrollment in the menu.

This took a bit of research but we were able to rob the BIOS memory from a functional BFT, then re-write it to the broken one. This took quite a bit of trial and error, well worth the experience.

For the super-nerdy: The BIOS chip is an SST25VF080B-50-4I-S2AF

You need an SPI programming clip and USB module, can find it on the website named after a large jungle.

The best software to use for reading and writing the flash memory is flashrom on Linux, works wonderfully.

@Wile E. Coyote I recall you had a similar thread many years back, hopefully this is some closure if you see this haha

At least I’m no longer down several hundred $$ and left with a paperweight

Up next - figuring out the operating system.

 

[jake20]

More progress - though I should be sleeping:

- First round of testing with Windows 10 32-bit. Latest version released a few months ago

- Keyboard / Mouse trackpad are working great

- Spent a few hours trying to get Ethernet working. It’s a 10/100 built in network card. Quite literally had to find the data sheet for the network chip, then trace all the pins back across the PCB and backplane connectors, all the way to the individual cannon plug pins.

- USB is a work in progress. Windows detects it but not properly

- Overall performance is better than expected, not the fastest but not unusable by any means

- Touch display is missing drivers, don’t know if I’ll actually be able to do anything about that. The original BFT FBCB2 software ran redhat enterprise linux, we’ll see how my testing goes with android. Hard to find a release that’ll run on this 2005 era i686 CPU

 

[TOBASH]

Why not try UBINTU Linux?

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

Hmm. The first ones ran SOLARIS which is a Unix flavor. Supposedly Windows thereafter (XP, I think - like on the MTS) -- but I'd have to dig back in my notes. JV5 may have run Windows 7...again, I have all that in a file somewhere. This is the first I've heard of them running any version of RedHat Linux though - just SOLARIS --> Windows migration.

(EDIT: Hmm. SOLARIS did in fact give way to RedHat Linux. Windows XP is mentioned in some of the literature over the years - and some screen shots in some handouts clearly show XP screens - but that might have been for MTS II only which does run XP. [MTS is sort of...'FBCB2-lite'] )

Your BIOS repair is very, very, very interesting. I thought initially that they just shadowed ROM BIOS in RAM and referenced the RAM shadow on boot - then if it determined 'unauthorized access' would just set a flag for the RAM not to read the ROM BIOS contents. But form what you say the security measures actually zapped the BIOS ROM itself - which I also considered - but discarded because it seemed such an...extreme...measure.

I don't mind buying all the kit (from that place that takes its name from a famous jungle) but would still need a BIOS image to load into the chip. You copied it from an unbroiled example - but do you have a copy of the image so I can burn the same into a new ROM? That would be *really* helpful. This thing has been a very, very expensive boat anchor since 2015 so this is a giant leap forward.

 

[jake20]

Hmm. The first ones ran SOLARIS which is a Unix flavor. Supposedly Windows thereafter (XP, I think - like on the MTS) -- but I'd have to dig back in my notes. JV5 may have run Windows 7...again, I have all that in a file somewhere. This is the first I've heard of them running any version of RedHat Linux though - just SOLARIS --> Windows migration.

Your BIOS repair is very, very, very interesting. I thought initially that they just shadowed ROM BIOS in RAM and referenced the RAM shadow on boot - then if it determined 'unauthorized access' would just set a flag for the RAM not to read the ROM BIOS contents. But form what you say the security measures actually zapped the BIOS ROM itself - which I also considered - but discarded because it seemed such an...extreme...measure.

I don't mind buying all the kit (from that place that takes its name from a famous jungle) but would still need a BIOS image to load into the chip. You copied it from an unbroiled example - but do you have a copy of the image so I can burn the same into a new ROM? That would be *really* helpful. This thing has been a very, very expensive boat anchor since 2015 so this is a giant leap forward.

I’ll PM ya.

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

On the subject of USB - if you know what the SIAD attachment is (lots regularly via Ebay's "Austin Aviation"/ beltfed34) - there's another in the same form-factor which has USB slots instead of the proprietary serial connections. I've only ever seen two of them and I grabbed mine the minute one became available.

If you disassemble one of the keyboards it terminates at the keyboard-end in USB, from what I remember. The USB version of the SIAD has two USB ports from what I recall (it's in storage at the moment) which tallies with what I read in an obscure manual (patent-related, I think) which details what lines do what from and through the VDT to the CPU etc. and the protocols used - and the pinout of the one CPU connector on the JV5 version of the CPU which I remember showed the two USB port pinouts.

The plan was to get mine booting from USB (in the absence of hard-drive and caddy) and just plunge ahead from there -- but of course if BIOS is n/s that's not about to happen. I can probably work out the pinout of the drive caddy and plumb an SSD in there if I really want to - but realistically it can just boot/ run OS etc. from USB (considering performance isn't likely to be improved/ degraded on a Pentium I level machine anyway.)

 

[jake20]

Why not try UBINTU Linux?

Ubuntu would work great - my only caveat is that I want function turn-by-turn GPS with google maps, which they restrict to only mobile platforms like android and iPhone. So therefore I am down the android rabbit hole lol

Android 9 for x86 is now booting fine on it, just trying to figure out some of the kinks with it.

 

[jake20]

The one thing I don’t know if I’ll ever get working is the touch display, no idea what rabbit hole that driver will be down.

 

[jake20]

On the subject of USB - if you know what the SIAD attachment is (lots regularly via Ebay's "Austin Aviation"/ beltfed34) - there's another in the same form-factor which has USB slots instead of the proprietary serial connections. I've only ever seen two of them and I grabbed mine the minute one became available.

If you disassemble one of the keyboards it terminates at the keyboard-end in USB, from what I remember. The USB version of the SIAD has two USB ports from what I recall (it's in storage at the moment) which tallies with what I read in an obscure manual (patent-related, I think) which details what lines do what from and through the VDT to the CPU etc. and the protocols used - and the pinout of the one CPU connector on the JV5 version of the CPU which I remember showed the two USB port pinouts.

The plan was to get mine booting from USB (in the absence of hard-drive and caddy) and just plunge ahead from there -- but of course if BIOS is n/s that's not about to happen. I can probably work out the pinout of the drive caddy and plumb an SSD in there if I really want to - but realistically it can just boot/ run OS etc. from USB (considering performance isn't likely to be improved/ degraded on a Pentium I level machine anyway.)

I’ve got a spare keyboard with missing keys, I shall probe pins later and see what I discover lol

 

[jake20]

@Wile E. Coyote good call on the USB keyboard, traced it and turned my spare keyboard cable into an adapter for female USB. Plugged a hub into it for more accessories, works like a charm.

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

The one thing I don’t know if I’ll ever get working is the touch display, no idea what rabbit hole that driver will be down.

DRS Technologies makes a rough-duty tablet of the same generation as these AN/UYK-128 systems which are also touchscreen under Windows. They show up cheap on the E-place, and I was thinking that the touchscreen driver for that thing may be the same as the one for the FBCB2s.

Given the fact so much of the DRS-produced FBCB2 stuff just utilizes COTS stuff (USB for the keyboard for example) I wouldn't be at all surprised if a generic touchscreen driver worked under say...Windows XP or Windows 7...or those OS's might even pick the touchscreen up as plug'n'play at install.

The Android OS on that - ha - I never thought of trying that. Cool.

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

More progress - though I should be sleeping:

- First round of testing with Windows 10 32-bit. Latest version released a few months ago

- Touch display is missing drivers, don’t know if I’ll actually be able to do anything about that. The original BFT FBCB2 software ran redhat enterprise linux, we’ll see how my testing goes with android. Hard to find a release that’ll run on this 2005 era i686 CPU

I've had multiple problems with Win 10 not recognizing devices on older hardware that Win 7 recognized and installed drivers for. *Sometimes* you can force the Win 7 drivers if Device Manager at least comes back with 'unrecognized device' - but too often Win 10 just seems to ignore older hardware entirely. Surplus Pano Toughbooks are *incredibly* bad for that - but not just them by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

Anyone know if any of the newer MFoCS II series BFTs have gotten into epay circulation? Specs are probably much beefier

Probably at least 5 years is my guess

Computers: Protecting the MFOCS PU

A number of Mounted Family of Computer Systems (MFOCS) processor units (PUs) have shown evidence of environmental damage. Read on to learn more.

www.psmagazine.army.mil

I've seen a couple. One looked like it was pulled out of a damaged/ rollover vehicle and had some case issues and I think the other looked okay less the hard drive and I think the door. That was probably 18 mos. ago or so. Haven't seen one since but also haven't searching too heavily lately either. You'll probably start to see some come out via the EDM stream which always wind up listed by those e-recycling outfits on Epay among all the oscilloscopes and desoldering stations when they clear out the lab of some government contractor developing peripherals.

 

[jake20]

Regarding the touch screen ordeal, man this is definitely some old stuff.

The touch screen was designed to conform with 3M / Dynapro SC4 standards. You can find several drivers floating around on the internet but they’re all for XP era operating systems. The driver itself is from 1999, so I had some age. Windows 10 definitely doesn’t like it, I can’t even seem to be able to get the raw serial output by reading the COM ports in PuTTY.

The touch panel is actually a serial device that outputs at 2400 baud, the software is intended to read the serial COM port messages and convert that into touch inputs as an HID device.

Going to try centos 5 and see if the drivers might’ve been baked into Linux of that era, also found some 32 bit possibly compatible drivers for Linux.