Decompiling a pic16cxxx based joystick hex?

MIOS programming (Assembler)
1

Hi there, here’s a question for Microchip programmers:

I was running around, looking for something cool to use as a box for a vst-i controller midibox when I found an old Madcatz PANTHER XL joystick for 8€

It’s really quite smart, with loads of buttons waiting to be “DINed” and a nice backlit trackball (see photo) that I was considering finding a way to adapt to be also “DINed” as an encoder.

Anyway, I unscrewed the thing, and to my amazment, there laid a microchip 16cxxxx!!!

At first I thougt “cool, a spare pic for my midibox”, then giving it some thought, I came to the conclusion that With some kind of Decompiling tool, and programming,

I might be able to use the actual setup (with all functions working fine)

So my question is, If I jdm the hex to my pc, is there i way of analysing whats been programmed, thus changing the hex to asm, or something?

obviously, madcatz won’t of included ;explination

in their code, but I could always give it a try?

What do you experts out there think?

or shall I just rip it all out and start from scratch?

don’t know how to use the trackball’s optical sensors as DIN encoders, but madcatz proove its possible using a pic, don’t they!

thks for any thoughts!

-Alex

2

Hi there, here’s a question for Microchip programmers:

I was running around, looking for something cool to use as a box for a vst-i controller midibox when I found an old Madcatz PANTHER XL joystick for 8€

It’s really quite smart, with loads of buttons waiting to be “DINed” and a nice backlit trackball (see photo) that I was considering finding a way to adapt to be also “DINed” as an encoder.

Anyway, I unscrewed the thing, and to my amazment, there laid a microchip 16cxxxx!!!

At first I thougt “cool, a spare pic for my midibox”, then giving it some thought, I came to the conclusion that With some kind of Decompiling tool, and programming,

I might be able to use the actual setup (with all functions working fine)

So my question is, If I jdm the hex to my pc, is there i way of analysing whats been programmed, thus changing the hex to asm, or something?

obviously, madcatz won’t of included ;explination

in their code, but I could always give it a try?

What do you experts out there think?

or shall I just rip it all out and start from scratch?

don’t know how to use the trackball’s optical sensors as DIN encoders, but madcatz proove its possible using a pic, don’t they!

thks for any thoughts!

-Alex

3

Hi,

You probably have to start from the scratch.. First of all, C versions of PICs are one time programmable. Rendering chip useless to any other use than it’s original. And then: This is a commercial product, I’m certain that Code Protection is on, so you can’t get a hex out of it.

(Or who am I to say:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sps32/mcu_lock.html ;D)

So you can start over, checking hardware connections ect. and try to do your own code to 16F**.. or just wire buttons ect. to 18F452 midibox.

I’m not sure, if anyone has already used a trackball in a midibox.. but at least with some tweaking (encoder drivers) this should be possible.

Bye, Moebius

p.s. I found this pic16 disassembler from the net:

http://online.dip.jp/mikado/index_e.html

4

Hi,

You probably have to start from the scratch.. First of all, C versions of PICs are one time programmable. Rendering chip useless to any other use than it’s original. And then: This is a commercial product, I’m certain that Code Protection is on, so you can’t get a hex out of it.

(Or who am I to say:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sps32/mcu_lock.html ;D)

So you can start over, checking hardware connections ect. and try to do your own code to 16F**.. or just wire buttons ect. to 18F452 midibox.

I’m not sure, if anyone has already used a trackball in a midibox.. but at least with some tweaking (encoder drivers) this should be possible.

Bye, Moebius

p.s. I found this pic16 disassembler from the net:

http://online.dip.jp/mikado/index_e.html

5

thanks for the help  moebius!

All that decompiling looks a bit scary to me, so I think I’ll

start cutting some wire and do it from scratch.

Anyone succeded with MOUSE/TRACKBALL devices?

regards,

-Alex

6

thanks for the help  moebius!

All that decompiling looks a bit scary to me, so I think I’ll

start cutting some wire and do it from scratch.

Anyone succeded with MOUSE/TRACKBALL devices?

regards,

-Alex