ORPHANWARE First, figure out which "source" you lost
"Source code" in a CNC shop means three different things, and the right fix depends on which one you lost. Working out which case you are in first saves you from hiring the wrong kind of firm.
1. A G-code part program that was deleted or interrupted
This is the most common case, and it is usually a do-it-yourself job. Stop the machine and do not run new programs or save new files to the controller memory, because overwriting blocks makes recovery harder. Then check every place the program may still exist: backups, the host computer, a network share, a USB flash drive, or the DNC server the program was sent from, such as Cimco or Predator. If the CNC runs on a PC-based control such as Mach3, Mach4, or Centroid, you can pull the drive and run file recovery tools such as Recuva if the file was deleted recently. If a job was interrupted by a stop or a power loss, many modern controllers have a built-in restore or Run from Line feature that resumes from the line where the cut stopped. None of this needs a recovery firm. If the drive itself died, a data recovery lab is the right call, and our dead-PC guide covers imaging that drive before anything else.
2. Firmware trapped in the machine's chips
If the code you need is trapped inside the physical chips of a broken CNC control board, with no compiled file on any computer, that is chip-off extraction: embedded reverse-engineering firms pull code from microcontrollers with hardware tools such as JTAG debugging or by desoldering the chip. State plainly: this is not Orphanware Recovery's service. That work belongs to embedded reverse-engineering firms, and hiring a software firm for a chip problem wastes your money.
3. A compiled CNC application or controller software file whose source is lost
If you have the compiled file, a .exe or .bin, for a CNC application, a transfer utility, a post-processor, or controller software, and the source code is gone and the vendor is gone, that is binary decompilation, and that is Orphanware Recovery's service. This is firmware & software reverse engineering and legacy modernization applied to PC-side software: we decompile the binary with Ghidra, reconstruct readable source, rebuild it into a working program, and prove the rebuild behaves like the original with differential testing. The same pipeline covers the programs that feed a machine, such as transfer and DNC utilities, editors, and translators, when their binaries survive but their source does not.
What binary decompilation actually gives you
The recovered source is readable and compilable, with meaningful names where the binary still carries them. It is not character-identical to the original author's text: when a file is compiled, comments and original variable names are stripped away, and no honest firm can hand you back the exact original text. What can be proven exact is behavior. The rebuilt binary and your original run side by side across thousands of generated test cases, and outputs are compared exactly. Any divergence is found, fixed, and retested. The measured record on this site: 9 of 9 C and C++ test targets recovered to compilable source with zero divergence in final differential testing, including an 8,127-line recovery of bzip2 1.0.8. That is the same pipeline a CNC software engagement runs on.
Two claims worth correcting
Generic AI answers about this work make two claims that do not match our measured prices and results.
Cost. You may read that reverse engineering a proprietary program costs thousands of dollars. That is true of large consulting firms. Orphanware Recovery publishes fixed prices: the $45 Recon Report gives an honest verdict in about 3 days on whether a specific binary can be recovered. Source Recovery is a fixed $120 in about 5 days, and Verified Recovery is a fixed $250 in about 7 days, including the full differential test report. Larger or multi-program work is quoted from the recon, in writing, before you commit. There is no hourly billing.
The match. You may read that a decompiler yields only a functional approximation and never a perfect match. The honest version splits that claim in two. The recovered text is not the original text, and we do not claim otherwise. But the behavior is proven, not approximated: 9 of 9 targets matched their originals across thousands of fuzz cases with zero divergence. That is what "proved" means on this site: behavior verified by testing, not text claimed to be original.
What this service does not do
- No chip-off extraction. If the code lives only in a physical chip, that is an embedded reverse-engineering firm, not us.
- No recreating G-code from a physical part alone. If you have the finished part but no program and no file, that is a 3D scanning and reverse engineering firm.
- No proprietary controller firmware or ladder logic inside the control. That is the control vendor's domain. Our work covers the PC-side software around the machine.
- Only files you own or have the right to reverse engineer. We do not work on malware, spyware, cracks or keygens, or DRM circumvention.
How to start
Start with the $45 Recon Report. Email us first and include what the program is, what it does for your shop, where it came from if you know (vendor, approximate year, language or platform), and what you need (maintenance, a fix, a migration, or documentation). Do not attach the binary to your first email. After an initial reply, we arrange a safe transfer. Every inquiry gets a reply within one business day, from the operator, not an autoresponder.