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Question

I had a bit of a question, I was wondering if it was possible to take a preprogrammed musical birthday card and reprogram it to say whatever you want. my dad and I bought an American Greetings birthday card (plays because I'm happy with a smiley face) and we took it apart and noticed 5 traces on the board that seemingly lead to nowhere but stem from the glop top processor. and we were wondering if those were some sort of programming pin set up.

drakec · Answer

this is the circuit board in question, those 5 traces around the epoxy blob are what caught my attention

jw0752 · Answer

Another possibility would be test terminals so that the boards can be rejected before they are used and other components like batteries are added. John

aswinvenu · Answer

Very interesting!! One thing you can do easily is connect those 5 test points to a logic analyzer and see it has any signals. You can also clock one out of 5 pins at a time for all 5 pins and look for any activity in the other lines. This exercise will give you an idea if there is any communication is allowed or not.

balearicdynamics · Answer

John, this has been the first thing I supposed to be. But five test points for something that very difficult that will be tested as it is super cheap, super small and probably no special test is needed. Maybe that it is at least for after building customization of the content (birthday, Christmas, wedding, etc.). May have sense?

Enrico

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