_norom firmware files. The vast majority of Jukeboxes all have the same boot ROM
content, differentiation comes later by flash content. Rockbox identifies this boot ROM
with a CRC value of 0x222F in the hardware info screen. Some recorders have the
boot ROM disabled (it might be unprogrammed) and start directly from a flash mirror
at address zero. They need the new _norom firmware, it has a slightly different
bootloader. Without a boot ROM there is no UART boot safety net. To compensate for
that as much as possible the MiniMon monitor is included, and can be started by
pressing F3+ON. Using this the box can be reprogrammed via serial if the first ~2000
bytes of the flash are OK.
8.7 ROMBOX
ROMbox is a flashable version of rockbox that is uncompressed and runs directly from
the flash chip rather than being copied into memory first. The advantage of this is
that memory that would normally be used for storing the Rockbox code can be used
for buffering MP3s instead, resulting in less disk spin-ups and therefore longer battery
life Unfortunately being uncompressed, ROMbox requires more space in flash than
Rockbox and will therefore not fit in the space that is left on an FM recorder. ROMbox
therefore runs on the V1 and V2 recorder models only.
The procedure for flashing ROMbox is identical to the procedure for flashing Rockbox
as laid out on page 77. The only difference is that the file to install is called
rombox.ucl. ROMbox is included automatically with rockbox 2.3 and all the current
daily build, so the procedure is identical otherwise.
78 Rockbox User Manual