mb944 Posted August 9, 2004 Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 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 ;explinationin 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mb944 Posted August 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 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 ;explinationin 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moebius Posted August 9, 2004 Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 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, Moebiusp.s. I found this pic16 disassembler from the net:http://online.dip.jp/mikado/index_e.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moebius Posted August 9, 2004 Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 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, Moebiusp.s. I found this pic16 disassembler from the net:http://online.dip.jp/mikado/index_e.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mb944 Posted August 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 thanks for the help moebius!All that decompiling looks a bit scary to me, so I think I'llstart cutting some wire and do it from scratch.Anyone succeded with MOUSE/TRACKBALL devices?regards,-Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mb944 Posted August 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 thanks for the help moebius!All that decompiling looks a bit scary to me, so I think I'llstart cutting some wire and do it from scratch.Anyone succeded with MOUSE/TRACKBALL devices?regards,-Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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