Getting the firmware of a VTech/LeapFrog LeapStart/Magibook

This is a very small blog post about my first reverse engineering project, in which I don’t really reverse engineer anything yet, but I am just getting started!

A family member asked me to add additional book data to the LeapStart he bought for his son, this is the starting point here.
↫ leloubil’s blog

We’ve all seen toy, child-focused computers like these, and I always find them deeply fascinating. I’m not buying them for my own kids – they’ll get their start on a “real” computer I’ll set up for them to explore and break – but I see their value, and they’re probably a better choice than giving a kid a tablet or whatever (which my wife and I are opposed to for our kids). What fascinates me about them is, of course, what software, and more specifically, what operating system they run.

It turns out this one most likely runs on something called µC/OS-II, one of the many relatively obscure embedded operating systems you never hear about.

µC/OS is a full-featured embedded operating system originally developed by Micriµm. In addition to the two highly popular kernels, µC/OS features support for TCP/IP, USB-Device, USB-Host, and Modbus, as well as a robust File System.
↫ µC/OS GitHub page

The documentation provides a lot more detail about its capabilities, so if you’re interested in learning more, that’s your starting point.