Source code of Furby has appeared on the internet internet

The scanned documents have appeared on the internet containing the source code of the popular cuddly robot Furby in the late 1990s. The 297-page document provides insight into how the cuddly toy’s advanced functionality for the time came about.

The original Furby appeared in 1998. They were small fluffy stuffed animals with big eyes and moving ears and beak-like mouth. A button was attached to their abdomen, pressing it provoked a reaction and an infrared sensor was present on the forehead with which, among other things, two Furby’s could react to each other.

Out of the packaging, the cuddly toys spoke a language that the manufacturer called Furbish. Over time, the animals were able to make themselves more and more intelligible. It was released in 1998 by Tiger Electronics for $35, but the price skyrocketed due to high demand and poor availability. New Furby generations appeared in 2005 and 2012.

The Furbys have always been loved by hacker communities, who took pleasure in customizing how it works. Perhaps the source code of the original Furby will help them with that. The scanned document has appeared online at The Internet Archive and Sean Riddle.

The processor was a variant of the MOS Technology 6502; according to the 6502.org forum members, it was the Sunplus SPC81A. A developer of 6502 assembly reads from the source code that the Furby had, among other things, a random number generator based on the tilt sensor. The source code was written by David Hampton and Wayne Schulz.