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Semi-Automatic Hacking of Masked ROM Code From Microscopic Images

Posted by Soulskill on from the making-a-computer-read-a-computer dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Decapping chips and recovering code or data is nothing new, but the old problem of recovering Masked ROM through visual inspection (binary '0' and '1' can be distinguished within the images) is normally done by crowd sourcing a manual typing effort. Now a tool that semi-automates this process and then recovers the data automatically has been released."

3 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. Nice 8085 example by ranulf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For a nice example of this being done by humans, see Ken Shirriff's decoding of the 8085 instruction decode logic.

  2. This is awesome... by jonwil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could be useful for future MAME work if someone is able to decap (and photograph) various otherwise un-dumpable mask-ROM-based MCUs and other chips.

    1. Re:This is awesome... by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Interestingly, this was done for Bubble Bobble to ensure that the emulation was perfect:

      http://mamelife.blogspot.co.uk/2006/08/completed-at-last.html

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