Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpl-opus!hpnmdla!roger From: roger@hpnmdla.hp.com (Roger Petersen) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Hacking Car ECUs Message-ID: <7380029@hpnmdla.hp.com> Date: 23 Apr 91 01:44:21 GMT References: Organization: HP Network Measurements Div, Santa Rosa, CA Lines: 28 In sci.electronics, Scott Coleman writes: | Speaking of hacking engine computers, what sort of development system would | one have to have in order to make such changes? Even with a long extension | cord, using a desktop PC as a development system is a little difficult. ;-) | | I can see using a portable, but portables have funky expansion slots (when | they have expansion slots at all!) which means you can't plug in the usual | logic analyzer type expansion cards. They use portables! About 2 years ago, IEEE Spectrum magazine ran an article on a couple of guys who went into business selling custom ROMs for your car. They showed a picture of one of the engineers sitting in the passenger seat of a car (a BMW?), with a portable PC on his lap, and a ROM Emulator connected to the car's computer. Apparently (I'm just guessing here, based on what I would do), what they did was disassemble the car's program, or else use a logic analyzer to watch accesses to the ROM tables, figure out how it worked, then download new and improved data into the ROM emulator and try it out. It looked like a REALLY fun job! ("You mean -- you make money doing this?!") But you figure they have to rent or lease a bunch of expensive cars to do their R&D, which probably explains the high cost of the aftermarket ROMs. Roger