Having missed the free Turbonet...

[swarrans]

..and being a cheapskate, I'm considering trying to get a serial cable for my Tivo to put a toe in the water and change to Mode zero (and play with the settings). I don't need/want to do the full networking stuff as I'm happy with Tivo making a conventional daily call and don't need the other networking capabilities.

Anyone know where I can get the cable in the UK?
And is it practical to make the Mode 0 mods using it?

Thx

Simon

Miffed as he missed Stradlingp's generous offer by seconds!

[AMc]

AFAIK the cable is the same used by the Philips Pronto/Marantz remote control and some early Kodak digital cameras. The pin out for the pronto cable is here http://www.remotecentral.com/pronto/pfaq-b3.htm
I believe it's the equivalent of the lower of the 2 pictures.

If you have an old pair of headphones with a 3.5mm mini jack, an old serial cable and a soldering iron it should be easy to make. The bits can be got from Maplin or similar

[swarrans]

Thanks AMc.
I've looked around and I think I've got all the bits to make my own cable according to those pin outs.

I guess the bigger problem is, although everyone on this site keeps saying how easy it is, it scares the hell out of me and I don't think the instructions apply to what I want to do -- ie I don't want to put in a bigger drive or load network drivers, so can't I just connect the cable and use standard Windows editors to modify the Tivo settings to Mode 0? Can't I skip all this "make a boot CD etc etc?...

Simon

[AMc]

If your Tivo is completely unmodified then I believe there is a way to get a Bash prompt over the serial connection but I'm not sure if you will be able to ftp back and forward as I believe that ftp is part of the network drivers installation?
If you can get a file on there then running Blindlemon's set up mode 0 script (see the Mode 9 thread here) will do it all for you.

Editing anything without installing something like Joe to edit files on the Tivo isn't going to be possible (I dont think) as there are no built in file editors in a standard Tivo and there are no 'public' interfaces for a windows program to interact with if you've not installed TivoWeb.

I guess the short answer is "no" I don't think you can do it .

You might find some better info here...
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=221022

[bigwold]

Simon

Don't you already have mode 0 and tivoweb or are you not who I think you are?

[swarrans]

Amazingly enough I was just writing to you Chris via our last email chain and so yes, I am who you think I am!
In my note I was basically asking you if the files you've already put on the hard drive I bought from you means I can use the serial link without doing all those "complicated" boot CD etc etc steps?
Although you set up Mode 0 for me, I wanted to play with the settings and add iicsetw without bothering you again....

Perhaps I'll send the email anyway so we can chat between ourselves!

Simon