Security, Science & HardwareDone with Claude Oct 15, 2026
Reverse engineer device hardware and write drivers
A user points Claude at their own electronics to write drivers, such as one for an old printer that stopped working on a new macOS, with the user acting as its hands for diagnosis.
- What They Did
- The commenter connected a device over USB to a computer and let Claude probe it. For an old printer that stopped working on a newer macOS, Claude wrote the drivers and had the user run physical checks: whether grayscale worked, how page 1 and 2 quality compared, unloading paper to expose an error, then reloading it to test duplex.
- How It Went
- The printer worked again with the new drivers. The commenter also says they did the same for remotes and a Rodecaster, though no details are given. This is one anecdote, not a tested method.
- Worth Knowing
- It mostly costs tokens, but the commenter says it works best on devices that aren't heavily locked down, such as phones.
Try it yourself with Claude
I have an old [device, e.g. printer or scanner] that no longer works on [my OS and version]. Help me write a driver for it: tell me what to run or check on the device, I'll report back exactly what I see, and use that to work out how it communicates. Finished means working driver code, build and install steps, and a way for me to test that it works. Pause and ask before anything that could change the device's firmware or my system settings.