"Chris G. Demetriou" wrote:
> There's no failsafe loader built in, but the flash EEPROM is a
> standard and socketed part, so you can yank it out and pop it into an
> EEPROM burner if you have or have access to one.

I'd forgotten the sanity check code went in so late, or Id have
mentioned it earlier.
> 
> If you neither have nor have access to one, well, i'm sure somebody on
> this list might be able to help you out.  (Unfortunately, I don't have
> or currently have access to one.)
> 
> > Any help is appreciated. I'd hate to see a nice box like this be
> > relegated to the trash heap because of stupid mistake.

The flash chip is the 32 pin PLCC socketed chip, which is the smaller of
the two socketed parts (the other is the PAL). There are tools for
pulling them out (the socket has groves in the corners), if you try
using non-standard tools take care because its easy to bend the contacts
in the socket (make sure the chip comes straight up, not angled). When
you put it back check the orientation! One corner is cut off the package
and one corner of the socket has a corresponding diagonal filled in, but
its quite easy to push the chip in wrongly (DON'T TRY!!).

The technique of ripping the flash chip out of a running Shark, putting
the scrambled chip in and doing a net-flash could damage both flash
chips and the Shark. I felt ill when someone told me they had done it!

> 
> It's not nearly this bad.  You'd be surprised to know how many times
> we made this same mistake ourselves.  8-)

To say nothing of the day I did a binary-chop search to find the most
recent version of the firmware that worked on rev 1 sharks!

Mark