Getting the Firmware of a VTech/LeapFrog LeapStart/Magibook

Summary

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. Overview of the device # The device is known as LeapFrog LeapStart in english and as VTech MagiBook in French (I'm from France so that's the version I have). The device is a reading aid for children. It is composed of a large plastic frame and a pen with a pointy tip. When on, you can place a compatible book on the device and use the pen to touch the pages. The device will then read the text on the page, play sounds, or do other things depending on the book. The device has a micro USB port, an audio jack, a power button and volume buttons. Why am I interested in this? # As a reverse engineering practice! I will graduate in a few months, and I haven't done any "real" reverse engineering yet, apart from tiny binary files for school projects. I was also fascinated by the fact that the reading of the books works by recognizing a pattern of dots printed very small on the page, if you want more information about this, check out this video series (in French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWPTnmCAc6c He is also explaining the hardware, which I won't do because I don't have the knowledge for it. I am interested in the firmware! Getting the firmware # To start reversing the firmware, I first need to get it. Extracting it from the device is out of my abilities, so where ? Well, when I was adding book data using the VTech Software, It also did a firmware update of the device. This means the firmware is/was on my computer! After searching my computer for VTech/LeapStart related files, I found a cache folder in this location: C:\ProgramData\VTech\DA\VtechStart\LFC_Downloads\cache I then started using binwalk to analyze the files in this folder. I found some interesting files, which seem to conta...