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I have some Wowwee robots that I'm taking apart in order to dissect them -- a project(s) meant to give me a foundation and focus to learn electronics (especially embedded/digital electronics).

My problem is, however, that although I have plenty of books on electronics/digital theory, I haven't been able to find any books/resources on reversing digital electronics.

The Wowwee forums themselves are a great resource, but most of the conversation there is from guys who already well know what to do. They're very courteous and helpful to answer questions, but I can't really ask for the breadth of how to actually decipher how all the chips are communicating with each other.

So, any recommendations on resources/books? Specifically, I would love some kind of resource that teaches along the lines of "MAKE: Electronics" or "Evil Genius" books -- where they mix the theory in with hands on applications.

I understand that reverse engineering isn't merely something that's taught overnight, or easily, and that it's predicated upon a vast understanding of underlying mechanics/theory, both electronic and digital. But I need to start somewhere, and the recommendation to go out and learn the vast world of digital electronics before trying to tinker and apply, even at a neophyte level, is difficult to keep inspired about.

Thanks!

(If you don't have any recommendations, if you could even just detail the generic process/steps of how one goes about reverse engineering/deciphering digital communications between embedded electronics, that would be much appreciated).

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Reverse engineering is an often difficult process, and requires more knowledge than what you need to actually design the same device. You should start learning from the basics, and eventually try to find the components in these designs and learn how they work singularly. – clabacchio♦ Mar 25 '12 at 21:59

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2 Answers

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I’ll try to answer the title question: What are resources for reverse engineering […]?

IMO, the most useful resources for reverse engineering come from within. They fall into a few categories:

  • Knowing the component base
  • Knowing design patterns and industry practices
  • Ability to make and interpret measurements

Perhaps, the only resource that doesn’t come from within are notes (blogs) of people who hack electronics, which may involve some reverse engineering. They can be found on hackaday.com (among other places). Sift...

The rest is an extended comment

Important questions:

  • For what purpose do you need to do reverse engineering? In other words, what's the objective?
  • To what level do you want to reverse engineer?
  • If learning digital electronics is the objective (?), would you consider a different target for reverse engineering? It could be something less ambitious. It could be something that requires less reverse engineering (e.g., a hobby project that comes with a schematic and principles of operation).
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1.) I like learning how devices work, and also sometimes having the ability to interface with them, and/or modify them or make them better. 2.) I suppose on the level that I could read/dump firmware, sift through it, possibly even modify or adapt it, like changing/adding features. 3.) I understand that learning digital electronics is a prerequisite to reverse engineering, so I would for sure be open to "lily pads" that lead there. – Coldblackice Mar 29 '12 at 5:43
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Hardware reverse engineering comes from pattern recognition and a personal library of experience. So practise makes better.

When I started life as a design engineer in 1975 I didn't learn any CMOS designs from University classes, but I ready every design magazine I could find and every App Not book and Library of Components... So in my 1st year of design I had already memorized most of the 14 16 pin devices on the market and would pull out reference book to check pins to remember.

One day my buddy rock star, composer, keyboard player had a musician friend Greg who played funky bass guitar using a small electronic box he got in California circa 1977. It was broken. dead. I agreed to fix it and discovered 20 chips inside with all the part numbers sanded off. ( to protect their design from rip-off and reverse engineering.) It was all CMOS SSI logic and CMOS analog switches. It took me a couple hours to debug it with a crude schematic and another hour to fix it. It turned out to be a design bug in using resitors to level shift logic levels to analog switch controls levels, where the design did not factor worst case threshold ranges. So no audio on the main output mux. switch.

Now you have the advantage with learning curve on the library of knowledge on the internet. YOur challenge is to learn how to chose key words for web searches. e.g. Google: Wowwee schematic

I like this remote control manual => Burp = Old habits die hard. http://goo.gl/F9Qxu How To Control the WowWee Alive Elvis From An External PC http://goo.gl/xOtXc

Good luck.. Of course today custom ASIC's are harder to replicate than standard logic.. Its just more fun.

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