Finding the command line

Blatant hacking

How do you get a RISC OS box to boot to the command line?

It's dead easy. You hold down Shift, and maybe '*' if the language is set to Desktop. Well, the language isn't Desktop on the IBX-100 box, so you just hold down Shift... the big one, on the left of the keypad.

Here's how to get to BASIC:

  1. The unit is unplugged, right?
  2. Open the keypad and hold down the big Shift, on the left. Keep it held down.
  3. Plug in the unit, making sure it can detect the Shift keypress (ie, point the remote at the box).
  4. Keep on holding shift for a few seconds, then let go.
  5. Close the keypad, and press the yellow Internet button to enable the display.
  6. Open the keypad and press Enter a few times. You should see a 'something not found' error. On my TV and the monitor, the 'something' part was off the top left of the screen. Not that it matters, we're in!
  7. Hold Ctrl and tap V, release Ctrl. Hold Ctrl and tap L, release Ctrl. We are now in MODE 12, which is much easier to work with on a 14 inch television / monitor.
  8. Type 'basic' and press Enter.
That's it! Do not type *desktop, as you'll get the pointer and nothing else.
Bits are missing from the desktop sequence, so it won't get itself going. This is fixable... but first I cobbled up a BASIC program to rip all the modules to Zip disc, then do a ROM dump. :-)

JPEG; 11K   JPEG; 16K
A really BASIC program! (note the UtilityModule version)

 

If the magic password to call up the ISP configuration does not work, you will need to interrogate your box to find out what the required code is. In BASIC, the program to do this is... 

  DIM buffy% 255
  SYS "NVRAM_Read", "ISPCAccessPassword", buffy%, 255 TO ,mycode$
  PRINT mycode$
The code printed is the code to use. If yours is something other than '39d8sk43k2', please let me know what type of box it is, and what the code is, so I can note it down here...

 

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Copyright © 2003 Richard Murray