Droid Developer Kit CD (_ddk.exe)

The disc that shipped with the 1999 Droid Developer Kit plays building instructions and video. It does not program the Micro Scout, and people have assumed for years that it did.

The Dark Side kit shipped a comparable disc. Only the 9748 one was taken apart here.

What it is

A C++ engine — _ddk.exe, namespaces LEGO::DCL::BuildingInstructions and StorageSystem — that draws its interface with DirectX and plays about 1244 QuickTime clips. The content is data-driven through LEGOModule descriptors: an intro, a build and a tip clip per step.

No VLL on the disc

Binary analysis confirms the disc cannot program the Micro Scout. The executable, unpacked from DATA1.CAB, has a C++ RTTI class table containing only building-instructions / media-player classes (BuildScene, StorageSystem, DirectX + QuickTime). It has no VLL / light-link / transmit class and no serial/parallel/COM port access; the Micro Scout appears only as UI bitmaps.

The Micro Scout's 7 programs are fixed on-brick (mode dial); the blank "P" slot was reserved for a "future application (fall 2000)" to be delivered via the RIS 2.0 USB tower (LEGO FAQ — P program & IR tower), which LEGO never shipped.

Links

• Set 9748 Droid Developer Kit (Rebrickable)
• Build-it-yourself kit models (PDF instructions): Buildable models (DDK & DSDK).