nesdev.com

Anyone ever had a try at R.O.B. emulation? I suppose you could have a try at simulating the robot (with this info http://www.google.com/patents/US4729563 ). But that is not what I'm aiming for: I mean actually low-level emulating the toy. For that, we'd have to decap the MCU to get the internal ROM dumped.

Sean Riddle ( http://www.seanriddle.com/decap.html ) is willing to decap it. But the thing is, ROB is super expensive on ebay. I suppose there's nowhere better to ask than here, for someone willing to donate and sacrifice theirs. A broken one is fine too, with just the PCB intact.

The MCU is apparently the same as the NES lockout chip: a Sharp 4-bit of what I assume is the SM510 family.

Actually only the IC needs to be intact, not the whole PCB. But yeah, being mostly mechanical means you should find much more easily broken ROBs with working electronics (the mechanical parts are way more likely to wear off first).

The Famicom version seems to be cheaper than the NES version. I got mine CIB quite cheap but I guess I was lucky as they are also quite expensive on ebay.

I would ask at Nintendo Age and Famicom World too.