Hijacking oem hardware

[Tom Cloud]

>Greetings
>
>I have been sorta "lurking" on the sidelines for a long time,
>evaluating the projects, and contemplating doing something
>myself.
>
>I have a number of OEM units, and went as far as to lool at the
>332 project closely. I also bought an 80552 board, and worked for
>a while at implimenting the algorythms I have encountered.
>
>I'm an EE, with considerable experience with microcontrollers. It
>strikes me that the ultimate solution to the problem of cheap,
>reliable hardware platform to experiment with  is to "hijack"
>some newer OEM platform that is cheap and common at the
>boneyards.
>
>The OEM stuff is not standard hardware - some of it anyway. It
>has been reworked for the intended purpose, and hardened for the
>hostile environment to a far greater degree than anything that
>could be cobbled together in my garage.
>
>The problem is that the hardware is proprietary. No memory maps,
>no hardware configuration, no documentation for the I/O chips, no
>way of disassembling the code, and no assemblers, or compilers
>available. Furthermore, most units are potted, so you can't even
>get to the stuff without melting the potting.
>
>If some industrious individual were to do a comprehensive job of
>reverse engineering one of these units, it would create a
>beautiful, cheap, rugged platform for any wierd idea anyone
>wanted to try.
>
>If one wanted to do that, one would need to
>
>1) Identify a candidate platform
>        - as much known about it already as possible
>        - with the latest technology available
>
>2) Obtain one
>        - Melt the potting
>        - Copy the code in all the ROMS
>        - Attempt to identify all the hardware
>        - Trace out a schematic, and put it on a schematic
>capture package
>        - Connect a logic analyzer, and watch the operation in
>progress
>        - Using this info, attempt to devine the I/O memory map,
>and put
>           together a package of published documentation where
>possible
>
>This strikes me as more of a project than any one person's
>talents, spare time, and energy are likely to take to fruition. I
>am equally certain that between us, we could carry off such a
>project.
>
>Is anyone interested? Who can do what?


good grief, Webb, what a concept (hope you don't mind if I'm
a little facetious  8^)   after all, that's what many of us have
been trying to do for some time.

why don't you join me on the eec-iv list and let's work on the
Ford EEC .... I'll share with you all I've found -- and some
thoughts / conclusions  ... or, write me back off-list

Tom Cloud