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So the TiVo has a serial connector at the back (SERIAL a 3.5mm stereo jack). Besides controlling other equipment with this (ie. a Satellite reciever) we can also use this port for accessing the "Backdoor" or a shell (shell as in a dos-look-a-like thingy). Before we can access the Backdoor or a shell (bash) we must have a nullmodem and a gender changer. I don't like the idea of plugging cable to cable to gender changer so this is what I did. The cable can stil be used for it's original purpose after this modifcation! Many thanks to TiVolure for his help! Read the Disclaimer!

Overview

• What do we need to adapt the cable
• Tivo and Sub-D pinout and how to connect
• First Contact

What do we need?

For those who don't want to use gender changer and nulmodem cable!

What do we need?

• The original TiVo RS232 cable that came with the TiVo.
• A female SubD, 9 pins - as seen with serial cables - connector.

Pinout TiVO serial and how to connect it

3.5mm pin	color*	signal	new sub-D	original Tivo Sub-D
A	blank (no insulation)	Signal Ground (SG/GND)	5	5
B	brown	Receive Data (Rx)	3	2
C	black	Transmit Data (Tx)	2	3

Cut the original cable approximately 15 centimeters from the black, original, sub-D connector.

Strip both cables and reconnect the inner cables:

- brown to brown and to pin 3 of the new sub-D - black to black and to pin 2 of the new sub-D - blank to blank and to pin 5 of the new sub-D Notice the swap here: the old pin 2 is now connected to pin of the new sub-D, the same goes for the old pin 3 which is now connected to the new sub-D's pin 2.

Check the cable for shortcuts and close the new sub-D. You now have a universal cable for both normal and nul-modem RS232 looking as such:

	A	the 3.5 mm stereo jack that goes to the TiVo
	B	the orginal sub-D connector (normal RS232)
	C	the new sub-D connector (null-modem RS232)

First Contact

Well, this part is mostly thanks to the great help of TiVoLure ...

Notes and info:
- I'm using a 30 hrs TiVo (a Philips PTV300 - HDR312/04) with just one harddisk (30 Gb) in it.
- I did not use ANY patches yet.
- I'm not sure (yet) if this trick works with other TiVo releases, but I do know it works with the one I'm using (v1.3 - bought it in Juli 2001 at www.tivo.com - USA model).

OK,... first make sure the TiVo is OFF (ie. remove the powercord!).

Next, start your favorite terminal program (Windows users: Windows comes with Hyperterminal which works just fine for this purpose). Select the proper COM-port and make the appropriate settings:

Now connect the newly made cable to the TiVo serial connection (Control out - SERIAL) and connect the new seb-D connector (the null-modem) to the proper COM-port of your PC.

Hold one hand near your keyboard, because you will need to press the ENTER key once as soon as the TiVo shows it's first glimps of life.

Now (with the other hand) insert the powercord so the TiVo boots and press the ENTER key ONCE (!!!!).

Your terminal program should show:

Now enter the secret password "factory" (without the quotes).

Please: E-Mail me if you find other passwords for different TiVo version.

Your terminal program wil respond something similar to this:

Here you see the "hidden" info of your TiVo, in this particular situation:

The PowerPC CPU (PPC403GCX) runs at 50 Mhz. The peripihal bus is running at 25 Mhz. This TiVo carries 16Mb of memory. It uses video-mode 3 (7114), has no serial number (???), has a Mac-address etc etc ...

Basically you can now start snoopin' in the debug session of this TiVo.

If you are reading this in order to disable the initial TiVo dial-in setup, then please continue reading here ... When you are looking for a way to get access to a Bash shell, the keep on reading here ...