Chapter 5

Another contributor to my trilogy book has submitted his draft chapter for review. Though I will not mention his name at this time, I'll give my readers a clue: he's a PCB-RE engineer from ENA Electronics Inc, who also leads a team doing various RE projects. Here's a two-page sample of his work:

I'm still in the process of vetting and editing, and will be going through the finer details with the writer himself to ensure an accurate representation of what he intends to share in his work experience, while at the same time providing an overall consistent and pleasurable read for potential buyers of this (I hope) much anticipated book.

Once the content of this chapter is incorporated, the trilogy book will hit almost 300 pages. There's one more contributor to go and I shall be giving him a tinker after I'm done with this review task.

Twilight Zone

I'm not referring to the well-known TV series by Emmy Award-winner Rod Serling, who served as host and wrote more than 80 episodes of the original show's 150-plus episode run. But doing PCB-RE does has its strange mix of confusion, frustration, jubilation, and trepidation along the way. In fact, what's left of the unverified portion of a PCB, I called it the twilight zone.

Just as we enjoyed the suspense and surprise ending at each episode (if you're that old like I am, chuckle), there will always be the same feeling when you reach this portion of doing PCB-RE. Then again, where's the fun and challenge if PCB-RE is a piece of cake?

So take it from the man himself:

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.”

10,000

After one year and nine months, and 122 posts later, my blog has garnered over 10,000 views. This is cause for jubilation as another milestone is achieved.

The number of countries has also hit 85 though it slowed down quite a bit since. Of course, it would be nice if readers can help promote and recommend my blog if they have been helped or inspired by what I've written. I'm sure there are still many out there who're interested in the PCB-RE topic but not many are aware of the resources available here and in my books.

Christmas is just slightly over a month away and it's a season to share good tidings of great joy. I'm sure if my readers can help some to find what they need here, it will most certainly bring a smile of gratitude in return.

Would you do that favor?

PhreakNIC 21

Was watching a video presentation on YouTube by Jonathan Ryan at the PhreakNIC 21 annual hacker and technology convention, when near the 26-minute mark during the Q&A session someone posed a question and he whipped out my book, The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering, to answer.

That was some pleasant surprise indeed, considering the event was slightly over a year ago! Now that my sequel book, PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques, was out since the beginning of this year, wonder if he had also purchase it and showcase at the recent PhreakNIC 22 event last month...

Readers interested to watch this video, click here.

Chapter 6

One of the contributors to my trilogy book, PCB-RE: Real-World Examples, has submitted his draft chapter for my vetting and review. I will keep his name and the rest of the contributors in confidence for now. Here is a two-page sample of what you can expect:

PCB-RE involves multi-disciplinary skills and a good deal of engineering experience. Besides the manual method of doing PCB reverse engineering which I'll showcase in my own chapter, there will be other techniques shared by different engineers in their own fields of expertise. Chapter 6 focuses on firmware hacking and you'll learn some very useful lessons as the author takes you step by step through the process, illustrated with many photos and screenshots.

To date, the trilogy has attained 240 pages. I expect it to hit the same number of pages as my other two books when the works of the other contributors come in and take their places.

Black or White

This post has nothing to do with the late Michael Jackson, or even Mike Binder. Rather, it's about a book on doing manual PCB-RE which is in the works, alongside the trilogy book which I'm also working and coordinating with a few contributors.

I've come up with two versions of the cover, one in black and one in white:

Would like to hear from my readers which of these two cover designs is better.

Some readers may ask, "What is the reason for this book? Why work on another when you're already working on the current book?" Inspiration is a funny thing, really. While writing my chapter in the trilogy book, an idea just popped up in my mind to write a bare-bone PCB-RE book for those who simply want the essential know-how of the manual approach, but with enough depth to help them take on real-life projects: a no-frills guide to doing PCB reverse engineering by hand.

In a way, it will supplement my first book, The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering for what it lacks of a complex board example, but which is still full of useful information in documenting the PCB-RE process using Microsoft Visio. However, the book will also be a complete guide in its own right as far as manual PCB-RE is concerned, and with a lower price tag that should appeal to more engineers interested to learn this covert art.

Judging from the progress so far, the trilogy will probably be available sometime in early 2019. But I hope to get this book out by end of 2018 or earlier, depending on how well the contributors to my trilogy are doing.

So keep a look out for more news on these two books...

Analog Zone

Analog ICs are generally simpler compared to their digital counterparts, yet their configurations and connectivity can be more complicated and illusive than we imagine. This is evident as I worked on the Analog Zone of the board, which to date I've covered about two-thirds of the content. Here's a two-page sample:

I'm actually running a little out of steam due to eye and mind fatigue. Writing is definitely hard work compared to hands on which, I suspected, might be the reason why many engineers prefer to work on projects rather than writing reports, or for that matter engineering documentation.

Time for a much needed break!

5-Star Review

It's been quite a while since my sequel book, PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques, received a review, so I was pleasantly surprised to see one, and a comprehensive one, from Sales Manager Mr Daniel Evans of Saelig Company, Inc.

If you're not an engineer, you may think of reverse engineering as a black art by which copycats steal technology or clone a product. Among engineers, the vast majority of reverse engineering is done to facilitate equipment maintenance. 

Regardless of industry, electronics repair shops are often asked to fix circuit boards from equipment that is no longer supported by the manufacturer. Perhaps the support period has expired, or the company is out of business. There may not be any source for a replacement board. The only way to keep the equipment running is to fix the board. In some cases the cost of replacing the equipment may be tens of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars. So repairing the faulty board can be extremely cost effective, even if the repair costs thousands. 

In cases where a replacement board is available, the cost and/or the lead time to acquire a replacement board may be prohibitive. Repairing the board is a better option. 

Whether the equipment is old or new, a schematic may be helpful or essential for repairing a board. But schematics are often not available, especially for older unsupported boards and even for some newer boards. That's where reverse engineering comes into play. 

PCB-RE Tools & Techniques is a comprehensive resource for anyone or any organization that needs to make schematics for printed circuit boards (PCB). While the author has over 30 years experience in circuit board testing, reverse engineering and repair, the book is much more than one man's experience in reverse engineering. The author has leveraged the reverse engineering expertise of a dozen other engineers from around the world. The result is a compilation of information, techniques, and equipment that will help achieve better, faster solutions to the problems that reverse engineering can present.

Coming from someone with relevant experiences in test and repair equipment, especially the highly popular RevEng system from ABI Electronics, this is a strong endorsement on my book indeed. Thanks and much appreciated, Dan!

Transition Zone

The next step in doing PCB-RE on a mixed-signal board is identifying and tracing the connectivity of the 'transition zone'. This is where 'digital' meets 'analog' in the form of ADCs and DACs:

Readers of my book, PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques, would have been quite well acquainted with the various strategies mentioned in my approach in doing manual PCB-RE. In this trilogy book, readers will be able to see how theory is put into practice, not just by me alone, but by a collective group of other engineers with their own methodologies as well.

Moving on to the next zone...

Digital Zone

Been working on Chapter 3 of my trilogy book, and today I've just finished the 'digital zone' of the real-world PCB example. Here's a two-page sample:

The 'digital zone' covers address, data and control buses, common signals, communication drivers and receivers, jumpers, etc. Next, I'll be covering the 'transition zone'. As to what that is, I'll leave my readers to guess until I'm done with that section.

There's still a lot of grounds to cover so let's get going...

Re-engineering Our Minds

Just received a complimentary copy of the book 'Think to Thrive' from the author Dr. Henry Toi himself, a personal friend of mine:

The subtitle 'Re-engineering your mind for growth' is interesting and insightful, coming from the pen of one who is a thinker as well as an educator. Somehow it struck me that just like reverse engineering PCBs, our minds too need to re-engineer not only to stay relevant and useful, but to attain the next level of excellence.

And that is something for us to THINK about, isn't it?

Interested readers can order a copy at the following online stores:

Kinokuniya
Times Bookstore

Trilogy - Chapter 3

Had started working on Chapter 3 of my trilogy book, PCB-RE: Real-World Examples. I'm into 21 pages and still counting. Here's a two-page sample of the partial schematic on the Control Logic card I'm using for my manual approach in PCB reverse engineering:

Hope to complete the chapter by end of this month. Then I will start to collate the works of the other contributors...

80 Countries and Counting...

Four and a half months after hitting 70 countries and 6,066 page views, my blog has finally reached out to readers in a total of 80 countries and 8,448 page views.

While it is no mean feat of an achievement, I believe more can be done to create awareness of its existence if readers would simply recommend my blog and work to friends and post it in electronics forums or discussion groups.

If you have benefited from what I shared, or even enjoyed what is posted, then please do me a kind favor by sharing the link (visio-for-engineers.blogspot.com). Better still, drop me a line (comment) so I know what my readers are thinking or would like to see in the blog.

Thanks again for visiting and making it happened.

Artosyn Drones

Received a query from a blog reader:

I just started a job this month which requires to RE some functions on a RC controller which has an Artosyn AR8001 and AR8003 chip on them but I am unable to find the datasheet on the internet. Any idea to approach this?

My reply:

The AR8001/AR8003 are a complimentary pair of image transmission modules customed parts by the Chinese company Artosyn Microelectronics. It is therefore unlikely you'll find any datasheet online for these two chips, especially if the company only sells their drone products and not the standalone ICs. 

If you're doing PCB-RE just to understand the design, or to produce similar products, the only workable way is backward signal annotations: 

1. Treat the AR8001/AR8003 as black boxes
2. Locate pin 1 as reference
3. Find out the power and ground pins
4. Trace out the address, data and control pins using known ICs or onboard CPU
5. Since these are image transmission chips, look out for video amplifiers and trace their pins back to these ICs. 

Hope the above pointers will give you something to work on.

An example of a RC controlled drone with imaging capability:

Partial list of main component parts (Chinese descriptions):

From Sketches to Streamlined

After some deliberation, I've decided to include the Rigol DS1052E into the Case Studies chapter of my trilogy book. As mentioned, someone by the name Hellene had done a superb job in reverse engineering this piece of equipment and placed the schematic diagrams online. Though he did not complete the whole unit, it does provide a good picture of a commercial digital oscilloscope, except for one problem: it's done in rough pencil sketches.

Below is a sample of the Channel 1's front-end:

I'd figure if I want to include his work, I'll need to clean up the schematics and do an overhaul using Visio. It's definitely much easier if I just copy and paste from Hellene's work but my sense of being a professional writer got the better of me. Here is the Visio rendition:

The rest are still in the works but readers will be pleased to know that they are getting a better deal with these pretty schematics when they buy my book. It will not be anytime soon, but I'm hoping that it will be released before the end of this year.

Meantime, do go to Amazon or the icon or menu links above to take a look at my other PCB-RE books, and consider supporting my hard work through honest purchase so I can continue writing and drawing these beautiful electronic artworks. Thanks!

Internet of Things

Recently picked up writing Chapter 2 - Some déjà vu Stuff, of my trilogy book again, after laying it off because of some pressing matters. There are a number of interesting topics that I cover in this prologue section of the book, one of which is the internet of things (IoT). Here's two sample pages for preview:

The main section of the book will probably contain seven chapters featuring works by various PCB-RE practitioners, followed by another section with additional case studies and essential tools for the trade. I'm not giving myself too much pressure to fix a deadline, but I'd figure when things are more firmed, I will brief the contributors on the guidelines for their chapters to begin work.

Will update my readers again on the progress, so stay tuned...

안녕하세요

If you're wondering, the post title means "Hello!" in the Korean language. After posting my findings on a Korean PCB-RE engineer and reader's blog sometime in early May, I finally received a comment - in fact, two - the same one in each of the two posts:

I am impressed with his level of English expression, considering that many Koreans are not very apt with this international language. Believe me, I've been to South Korea in 2012; it's challenging to converse with the locals there if you do not have a modest amount of Korean vocabulary. That said, I'm sure many are seeing the importance of picking up English, especially after the recent de-nuclearization summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore early June this year.

My third book (trilogy) is still in the works though, and I got the nagging feeling it will take much longer than the sequel to complete. Given the technical nature of such a niche topic, I'm not sure how well it will go with non-English speaking readers. Perhaps this Korean gentleman might consider translating my books for the benefit of his own people, since he has the desire to propagate the PCB-RE technology in his country.

Just a thought for now but who knows, it may become a reality (if he reads this post)...

SkillsFuture

This morning while doing my usual routine walk to begin the day, I stumbled upon two cards lying outside the gate of a secondary school:

On the flip side, two fields of industry are highlighted:

With the SkillsFuture Festival gaining momentum island-wide, the probability of coming across their publicity materials is significantly higher than striking the lottery...

iRobot

Was at the Lifelong Learning Institute this afternoon for the SkillsFuture Festival 2018, a month-long event organized by SkillsFuture Singapore, aimed at inspiring citizens to develop a passion for learning and pursue skills mastery. There were plenty of activities going on there but what caught my eyes was this particular SG social robot at one of the booths:

Meet Edgar version 2, a robot with the ability to ad-lib, i.e. come up with his own responses to questions posed at him. Its maker, Dr Wong Choon Yue, is a research fellow at the Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Edgar is more than just a robot avatar; with his in-built sensors to detect human facial expressions and gestures, voice recognition and knowledge database, he is able to engage living people for autonomous and intelligent interactions.

What he lacks now is realistic facial feedback but it probably should not be long before he gets one in the next model. That's kind of exciting and scary at the same time!

0x90 - Riding the NOP sled since 1998

There was this guy who bought my first full-colored PCB-RE book and left a book review on his blog, with the name as title above. Here is a small snapshot:

Those interested to read the whole article, please click here.

After reading his review, I wrote him an email expressing my appreciation and informed him that I was in the works of coming out with a sequel that would address his concerns. That got him excited and wrote another post, New Book Cooking. You can read it here.

Recently, I was surprise to receive an email from him out of the blue. Evidently, he had bought my second book PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques, and was totally happy with the topics covered that he decided to write a good review on it.

Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed... ;)

ScanCAD Facebook

Just received a Facebook notification this morning that ScanCAD mentioned my name in their page, so decided to check out what's up. Turns out:

In appreciation, I left the following comment:

Thanks to Bill and Jeff for contributing the longest chapter in the book, with useful insights and comparison of different methodologies in PCB-RE.

Hope to catch up with you guys again...

Surprise from the Kingpin

This morning I received a surprise email from Joe Grand (aka Kingpin) giving me a brief update of his encounters at the recent Teardown 2018 event in Portland, Oregon his hometown. He ran into his friend John McMaster and decided to pose for a selfie with my book, PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques which, incidentally they're both contributors too:

Now that's totally awesome!

Joe also gave away copies of the book to Bunnie Huang who has a long history of hacking and reverse engineering products, as well as Sean Cross 'xobs' of Studio Ko-Usagi. And both of them 'happen' to reside in the same island-state as me too!

Things are really heating up in the PCB-RE community, just like the weather in Singapore...

Teardown: Portland 2018

The annual Teardown Convention was held in Portland, Oregon this year and had just ended. It is an event where hackers, hobbyists and designers converged and share their ideas, discoveries and inventions through talks conducted in various rooms equipped with the necessary AV equipment:

Portland, Oregon is the hometown of Joe Grand the kingpin so it's no surprise he graced the event with his presence and presentation. What aroused my interest, however, was a talk given by Jeremy Hong, a cool young dude from Wright State University who runs his own business. In his first talk at the convention, he actually recommended my book PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques to the audience:

How cool can that be? In appreciation, I tweeted him:

Thanks, Jeremy, for recommending my book at your Crowd Supply Teardown talk. I owe you a big one! ;)

to which he replied:

No problem! It’s an excellent book and it really needs to get out there.

Since he's also into PCB reverse engineering, I asked if he's interested to write a chapter for my third book, and I got more than what I bargained for:

Definitely! It is an honor. I think I may have a few people in mind (that may be able to contribute to the book as well...)

Well, looks like there is hope for the trilogy book after all...

Korean Extravaganza!

Well, not exactly spectacular but the thought of having my book being listed in a Korean blog as a textbook for the PCB-RE subject is reason enough to dance with joy. Here's the follow-up to my previous post:

Seems that my Korean reader has also bought the sequel book, PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques, and given his review on his blog (translated by Google and paraphrased for readability):

There is a lot of content related to the practical work that can be used as teaching material this time. I have not gone through the book, but it's similar to what I'm currently teaching. It is a fact that information related to this field is rare. I am really grateful to the authors for publishing this book on the PCB-RE subject. We will do our best to promote the practice of this niche skillset in Korea.

The reader is even kind enough to provide a link to my blog, and advised his readers to read the book if ever they buy it. As they'll say in Korea, "Kamsahamnida!" That's 'thank you' if you're wondering...

100th Post!

This is my 100th post and what better way to celebrate it than a review from a Korean reader of my book, The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering? I stumbled upon his blog by accident and was delighted that someone of a nationality thought to be closely related to the Chinese actually bought the color edition of the book, even though he seems not to have a good grasp of the English language!

Of course, the blog is in Korean but thankfully there's Google translate to give a rough (and rather awkward) translation that is still bearably understandable. If you're curious, click on the picture to go to his website and take a look.

Have fun...

First Review from the UK

Am happy to find a new review from a reader in UK for my book, PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques:

Fantastic book, with loads of interesting information. From using the right light wavelengths to see through solder mask, to the theory and practical uses of X-Ray to see the inner layers of a PCB; the book has plenty of information at all levels of complexity. 

Highly recommended.

I really appreciate readers who take the time to give their reviews; it's not only a strong endorsement but a great encouragement to spur me to write further and better!

Change of Plan

Readers who're following my blog are aware that I am in the process of writing my third book on the subject of PCB-RE, a sort of trilogy to the two books I've written.

In the process of drafting the chapters outline, I decided that a book that solely focuses on my own PCB-RE experience is not adequate to give an overall feel to the practical aspect of this niche skillset. Therefore, it is in the interest of the readers that I should again invite practicing engineers to share their personal journeys.

I have just sent out invites to five engineers which I feel have the right combination based on the works they had done. I have also notify Marc Hickling of ENA Electronics Inc. of my intention to include a case study from their side of the story as well, and received a positive reply. There is still room for 2-3 more so if there are readers out there interested to showcase their PCB-RE works, don't miss out on this opportunity: drop me a note in this post!

Looking to hear from you soon...

Goodreads @ Google

While Googling 'PCB reverse engineering', the following ad turned up right beside the search results:

Quite a nice surprise to see my book and name appearing. Hopefully, engineers who are looking for this subject will find something helpful and informative through what I shared, both in the printed pages as well as my online blog!

Trilogy - Foreword & Preface

Was overcome with the urge to write, so I sat down in front of my PC and gave some thought on the Preface for the trilogy. After about two hours...

...and that's only the first half.

As for the Foreword, well... in response to a request from a reader who left a comment on my post Trilogy to PCB-RE dated March 16, I have reserved it for Amir Pasalic, CEO of ENA Electronics Inc. When the third book is firmed, I will write to him. Hopefully, he will be kind enough to pen the words...

Case Studies in Musing...

While organizing the materials for my third book on PCB-RE, I revisited the archives for the second book and found a rare gem. There was one chapter that I had initially intended to include but had to lay aside because two of the contributors were not available. I had done some preparation work on that chapter and it would be a pity if I leave it half-baked. Here's a glimpse of two sample pages:

If the trilogy works out, readers will get to see three other real world examples showcased in brief in one chapter. It is too early to set a date as to when the third book will see the light of day. If interests in the PCB-RE topic picks up (as indicated by the sales of the two books), I might consider setting aside more time to work on it.

For now, I will have to attend to other priorities, though...

Windows 10 BSOD on Cold Boot

Lately my desktop PC has been plagued with the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death) problem on cold boot up with random reported issues. It would, however, go away upon restart and functions well for the rest of the time.

I suspected that it could be due to the new RAMs that I installed previously not too long ago. After researching online, I was more or less certain that some older motherboards could not reliably handle 8GB of memory or more. To confirm this fact, I removed two 2GB sticks and replaced with two 1GB modules, reducing the RAM to 6GB total. It was spot on! Now the PC boots up normally.

Looks like I'll have to be content with this configuration for now. On a positive note, the two extra 2GB sticks can serve as spares, just in case.

70 Countries and Counting...

As of today, my blog has hit 6,066 page views with readership spanning 70 countries:

Considering that I started posting just over a year ago, this is quite encouraging. I'm sure, however, that more can be achieved if existing readers and visitors do their part to help spread the word and share the link (visio-for-engineers.blogspot.com) to friends, forums and the engineering communities which they belong. It's a small favor to ask in return for the many hours of efforts put into writing the articles.

To those who have done so or will do so, I convey my heartfelt thanks.

Inside Cover Page (Trilogy)

Had some time off my busy schedules and commitments to take a breather, so decided to work on the inside cover page of the third book:

Reminds me of the 'for Dummies' series books with the same shaded page background for their inner cover pages. Haha, had wanted to do something like that for a long time...

ENA Electronics Laboratories

Among the readers who bought my books, there are quite a number who work in the PCB-RE industry. One example is Amir Pasalic, the CEO of ENA Electronics Laboratories in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Though his company's main business is in industrial electronics and servo motors, it is interesting to note that PCB repair and reverse engineering are two important services listed.

Readers who want to find out more can go over to the ENA website to better understand the PCB-RE process and other capabilities this company offer. Just click on the graphics above to get teleported to the destination.

New RAMs, New Life!

The SDRAMs I ordered arrived sooner than expected. They are half the height of my original Kingston and Hynix modules:

Removed the existing two 1GB RAMs and plugged in the new ones into the EP35-DS3 motherboard, then powered up, held my breath and watched the PC booted up... Success! Just to be sure, I double-checked the RAM available:

Yep, it's there: 8GB worth of memory. A 10-year old desktop has been given a new lease of life. Let's hope it will last another 3-5 years...

5-Star Review from a PCB-RE Engineer

This morning I received a FB message from an engineer in Canada, expressing his appreciation for my sequel book. He was so impressed after reading it, he left a review on Amazon.ca:

I'm a professional reverse engineer by trade and have worked on many reverse engineering projects at ENA Electronics in Hamilton, Canada (a sample work can be found at the ENA Electronics website). Many of the techniques that are mentioned in this book we are already using long before the author put it together based on our own research and findings. BUT Keng Tiong did a remarkable job of pooling people from all over the industry and bringing their publications and research together in one place and putting the valuable content into one book. He took the initiative that many of us wished we could have done and made it happened.

I opened the book yesterday at 6 pm and read it through until midnight, I couldn't get enough of it! Finishing the book left me brimming with even more ideas and concepts that can be possibly put in place in a professional environment to ensure our customers receive the best quality service and support, making sure those legacy products last longer into the future. 

Hats off for the great work! I look forward to your follow-up in the trilogy!

Embedding Components in PCB

In recent years there have been discussions and papers on embedding components into printed circuit boards among manufacturers and designers alike. From a PCB designer's point of view, there are advantages to this approach, such as improved signal integrity due to shorter trace runs and smaller lead inductance resulting in reduced EMI. On the flip side, there are also challenges since current EDA tools lack support for this kind of design requirement in terms of component library and routing strategies. Manufacturers likewise face new difficulties implementing this new technology in PCB fabrication, most notably the need for major overhaul in their manufacturing process and equipment.

Doubtless, it will be the end-users or customers who will determine whether this new approach takes off or remain a novel idea on the drawing board. Those looking to protect their designs from hackers and reverse engineers will probably give it some consideration. However, in the long run, it will be the cost of maintenance and repair of these PCBs that will determine the outcome. Still, those of us in the PCB-RE business will need to keep an eye on its development; it may become a reality in the not too distant future, perhaps 3-5 years from now.

GA-EP35-DS3

I'm a DIY person, so it's not surprising that I prefer to setup my own PC by buying the parts and assembling them myself to the configuration that I wanted. Since the 386 era, I had assembled a couple of PCs and when they outgrew my needs, I'd upgrade the CPU, RAM, video card or simply assemble a new PC and give away the old PC to some needy students. My current PC is just over 10 years old now:

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3 with an E8400 Intel Core 2 Duo processor and four 1GB DDR2 SDRAMs. The video card is an NVidia GF8600GT with 512MB RAM. The original 250GB hard drive running Windows XP had died and was replaced with a 500GB running Windows 7, followed by a 1TB running Windows 10 since mid last year.

Recently, my old trusty desktop PC started showing signs of aging. Sometimes it let out a long beep followed by a few short beeps as it power up and simply hangs; other times, it run through a series of POST, turns off and repeats the same sequence again. This usually goes away after I adjusted the video card and supported it with an ice-cream stick to keep it level since the motherboard is affixed to the chassis vertically. Yeah, it's a crude fix but hey, it works...

Anyway, two days ago when it booted up, I noticed that the reported RAM was 3GB instead of 4GB and realized that one of the SDRAM module is dead. This was confirmed when I swapped them and the PC just hanged and refuse to boot. In the end, I took out two of the modules and reduce the memory to just 2GB. Now it boots up normally.

I'm not about to throw my old workhorse away just yet since it still functions well. In fact, I decided to give it more muscle and ordered a set of four 2GB DDR2 SDRAM modules from eBay @ $20. It should arrive in two weeks time and hopefully, that will stretch the PC's usefulness another 3-5 years. That's the maximum memory capacity the motherboard can handle anyway.

Ps: I had the foresight to buy a motherboard that uses solid tantalum capacitors instead of the leaky electrolytic type. That ensures better durability and is now proven to be the best value for money decision I've made.

Trilogy to PCB-RE

As the dust settles over the release of PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques, I am thinking of writing the third and final installment to complete the trilogy on the PCB-RE subject. This third volume will discuss a real-world example of my successful attempt at reversing a whole electronic unit comprising three cards: an analog PCB, a digital PCB, and a mixed-signal PCB.

The book cover concept is shown below:

I'm not sure when I will start work on it, as I need to juggle my priorities and commitments. Probably will do some background work of organizing my materials when I find the time. Readers who have bought my two PCB-RE books, please read the back cover and leave your comments on what you'll like to see included in this upcoming book.

And oh, by the way, I'm also deliberating on who to write the Foreword (or whether there should be one anyway). If you know of anyone who is experienced in PCB-RE, kindly recommend. Thanks!

Hardware Virtualization

These days, virtual machines (VMs) are gaining popularity as legacy systems face obsolescence and the PC platform becomes more powerful. Hardware virtualization is an attempt to keep old software and OS running, albeit in a new and foreign system that emulates the hardware environment in which the binaries of the original systems operate. This is important, especially if the software is still required for a company or business to continue its day-to-day operation, when the legacy hardware no longer functions.

Some examples are VMware workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Parallels Desktop for Mac, etc. With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft no longer supports its Virtual PC emulator and replaces that with the more sophisticated (and cumbersome) Hyper-V. Those wanting to emulate the DOS system and run old 16-bit DOS legacy programs, however, have the option of using DOSBox, a stable and popular implementation that runs well in the latest Windows OS. For others who wish to run earlier versions of Windows like 3.11, 2000 or XP, the best bet is Oracle's VM VirtualBox Manager. Heck, it can even run Sun's Solaris 10 and all flavors of Linux, for that matter!

On a lighter side, there are also emulators that allow die-hard fans of old gaming consoles like Atari, Nintendo and Sega to continue playing their all-time favorite games. One such emulator is the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME):

Whether for work or play, virtual machines are here to stay. So it's time to get acquainted with them and who knows, you might just find new ventures and opportunities in the process...

Saelig's RevEng

Well, no... this post is not about an intriguing plot from a suspense novel. Saelig is a company specializing in electronic test, measurement, diagnostic and design solutions, and RevEng is a product from ABI Electronics which it represents in the US.

Dan Evans, the Sales Manager of Saelig, came to know about my book through a tweet I posted in Twitter and bought a copy. He was of course delighted to discover one full chapter on the RevEng system. He has since made contact with me for permission to reproduce that chapter for distribution to his clients, which I heartily approved.

Here's what he wrote in his LinkedIn post:

Although Singapore engineer and author Ng Keng Tiong devoted most of one chapter of his new book to ABI Electronics' RevEng system, people at ABI and Saelig Company were not aware of the author or his work until we saw a tweet about the new book.

Published just three months ago, PCB-RE Tools and Techniques is the sequel to an earlier book titled The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering, which is about reverse engineering the hard way – without assistance from hardware/software tools.  

Along with information from other reverse engineering experts, PCB-RE Tools and Techniques includes information about systems that help automate the process of reverse engineering. Titled Clip-N-Learn: As Easy As ABC, Chapter 8 is mostly devoted to ABI Electronics' RevEng system which, quote:

To demonstrate the clip-n-learn technique I have selected ABI Electronics RevEng system for its straightforward design and ease-of-use.

as the author wrote in his introduction to that chapter.

For more information of the RevEng system for your PCB-RE needs, contact Dan Evans @ Saelig. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to show you its functionalities and capabilities.

Emulating VAX/VMS on a PC

Test program development on the Factron Series-700 ATEs were carried out off-the-testers since test debugging was top priority with limited time slots and access to the hardware. With a strength of about 30 programmers during our peak, we did our work in front of VT220 and VT320 terminals at our desks.

These dumb terminals were networked to a DEC MicroVAX 360 server system running a Program Management System (PMS) that emulates the Factron's environment, where we:

1. Input board description, assigned component models from the standard libraries or wrote custom models that were not found,

2. Processed these PCB-related files to generate the wirelist and test program for the target tester,

3. Created in-circuit test routines (ICTRs) for devices without test, and

4. Compiled these ICTRs and then the main test program.

After all the pre-testing work was completed, a data package was then generated using GETPART for downloading from the target tester's terminal, so the programmer could then work on debugging the test program on a real board that was interfaced via an in-circuit fixture to the tester itself.

Overtime, maintaining and servicing the MicroVAX server become expensive and we started looking for an alternative to do away with the aging hardware which none but a few senior engineers knew how to operate. The VAX machine was reliable but not the hard disk, and though we frequently back up to tapes, finding replacement for the disks proved challenging as the available stocks diminished, mostly refurbished parts that had limited life-span anyway.

Fortunately, there were companies out there specializing in virtualization software that can emulate legacy VAX systems. After some evaluation, we engaged a company that helped us migrated the MicroVAX server to a Windows-based PC using the Charon-VAX solution. Of course, we paid quite a bit for the software license and service, but within three years it was recouped.

Now, after leaving my company, I still looked back fondly how I worked on the VAX environment. Is it possible to create my own virtual machine for VAX/VMS without having to pay a high price for the software license? I wondered. I soon found out that it was plausible indeed. Here is a screenshot of my very own VAX machine running the familiar VMS operating system within Windows 10:

The best thing is, I can customize it to look like the VT220 of the Factron DEC terminal and bring back some good memories. Like they say, good legacy software never dies; it just lives on in another hardware host that permits it to thrive in. Simply awesome!