# Cachecard expansion - what's that connector REALLY for??



## PhilG (Jan 15, 2002)

I've been meaning to ask this for some while, and never seen it discussed, so....

The cachecard/nic is probably the single most useful addition anyone can make to their Tivo, and it's really lucky that those nice folks at Tivo/Thomson gave us an edge connector to plug it into

And that's the point - why DID they put that connector on the motherboard?

Wouldn't all this wonderful hacking be a real pain without it!!

What was it originally intended to do for Tivo??


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

PhilG said:


> What was it originally intended to do for Tivo??


Exactly what it does AFAIK.

I think the original purpose of tivo was a server (that would be the box we use) serving "satellite" boxes with every telly.

This idea was binned but the motherboard design remained.

I think


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## Chris T (Oct 30, 2002)

It's my understanding that it was for factory testing/diagnostics's of the main board.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

It was for diagnostic testing, which is why making a connection to it automatically adds backdoors to the menus.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> It was for diagnostic testing, which is why making a connection to it automatically adds backdoors to the menus.


That would would explain that strange message on the hidden page in System Information (requiring several button presses when nothing seems to happen) saying "All Your Connections Belong to Us".


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Development too; much easier to update the software over a network connection than pulling the hard drive!


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## davey971 (Apr 4, 2004)

Pete77 said:


> That would would explain that strange message on the hidden page in System Information (requiring several button presses when nothing seems to happen) saying "All Your Connections Belong to Us".


Don't think I've seen that screen - can you post a 'how to'?


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## Pugwash (May 23, 2003)

Can anyone knowledgeable tell me why my Amiga A500 had "Rock Lobster" inscribed in copper on the motherboard? It was only later in life I discovered the song of the same name...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

davey971 said:


> Don't think I've seen that screen - can you post a 'how to'?


Do you have a Cachecard or a Turbonet or Terbonet card in your Tivo (if you do the first line of Page 1 of System Information will say "Backdoors: ENABLED!")

If so then go to System Information and press the channel down button 17 times (past the point at which no new pages of information seem to be appearing)

Finally you get:- "All your tuners are belong: to US!"

Presumably some Tivo developers idea of a little in house joke.


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## benallenuk (Aug 1, 2005)

Look here, anything to do with it

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DAll%2Byour%2Btuners%2Bare%2Bbelong%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

benallenuk said:


> Look here, anything to do with it
> 
> http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DAll%2Byour%2Btuners%2Bare%2Bbelong%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG


On this Wikipedia page it says:-



> The recorder of personal video, TiVo says All your tuners ploughs belong: you the US in the counter of the system of information if black doors they are available and the ChanDown keyboard key is pressured many times (it tries 19).


Seems to be 17 Channel Down presses on my Tivo though.

It still seems to be some kind of huge "In Joke" that I don't really get.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

This may help Pete:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us


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## Prof. Yaffle (Aug 2, 2002)

English version here

edit: Not fast enough.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

A pity there isn't something more unique to Tivo behind it all then.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Also listed in cultural references http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...to_"All_your_base_are_belong_to_us"#Real_Life


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Also listed in cultural references http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...to_"All_your_base_are_belong_to_us"#Real_Life


Which states:-



> In Series 1 TiVo PVRs, if backdoors are enabled then 17 presses of page-down on the System Information screen (after the apparent end) will cause the message "All your tuners are belong to us" to be displayed.


But they haven't got it quite right as its actually "US" and not "us" which I'm sure you agree makes a rather significant difference given the geographic location of Tivo HQ. 

Also its 17 presses of channel down on the System Information screen from the first page and not from the "apparent end" of System Information. Well it will probably all be right by the time you read this as I'm now about to correct the errors on Wikipedia.


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

Pugwash said:


> Can anyone knowledgeable tell me why my Amiga A500 had "Rock Lobster" inscribed in copper on the motherboard? It was only later in life I discovered the song of the same name...


What do you know - this was the third link when I Googled "rock lobster amiga":

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/b52board.html


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## Andy Leitch (Apr 30, 2005)

Pugwash said:


> Can anyone knowledgeable tell me why my Amiga A500 had "Rock Lobster" inscribed in copper on the motherboard? It was only later in life I discovered the song of the same name...


The AMiGA designers always put Easter Eggs on and in their hardware/software.
The reference to Rock Lobster is simply one of the codenames. The A1200 has Channel Z and the CD32 had Spellbound inscribed on the motherboard.

The current UK TiVo market is identical to the current UK AMiGA market....a small, fanatical userbase, clinging to ancient hardware. In many ways, the AMiGA is now more advanced with the release of AMiGAOS4 on Xmas Eve...at least us in the AMiGA community get official OS updates.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

When did it become an "AMiGA"?

Back in the 80s I worken on an Amiga magazine, memories...


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

I used to have a Sinclair QL and still look in on the scene (via the internet!) very ocassionaly - it always amazes me that people still develop software for this hardware, but it's generally free and done in their own time.

To find that people (and companies) are developing new hardware for the AmigaOS is quite hard to fathom though - the potential market for this hardware can be counted in the low thousands, if that. Who on earth will develop games or applications for the Amiga, apart from die-hard fans?

I did take issue with this comment from the official Amiga site: *AmigaOS was also the first commercially available operating system to implement pre-emptive multitasking.*

No way Jose! QDOS on the QL had full pre-emptive multitasking and became available in 1984, the Amiga wasn't launched until 1985! Americans, always rewriting history...


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## Andy Leitch (Apr 30, 2005)

TCM2007 said:


> When did it become an "AMiGA"?


After the Escom buyout and the creation of AMiGA Technologies.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Andy Leitch said:


> The current UK TiVo market is identical to the current UK AMiGA market....a small, fanatical userbase, clinging to ancient hardware. In many ways, the AMiGA is now more advanced with the release of AMiGAOS4 on Xmas Eve...at least us in the AMiGA community get official OS updates.


These people most have the exact opposite psychological profile to those so ready to immediately claim "Tivo is dead, the future is *here*" 

Speaking of which just how reliable are you finding that Sky+ recording system on your Sky HD box?


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