Reverse engineer
reverse engineer - taking something apart, like a machine, to learn about the technology and how you can copy or imitate the design and build something similar (See Wikipedia on reverse engineering)
Example sentences:
* The most capable computer programmers can reverse engineer a computer system and, through a variety of techniques, can understand the inner workings and imitate or even duplicate the computer system.
* One common motivation of reverse engineers is to determine whether a competitor's product contains patent infringements or copyright infringements.
* British and American forces noticed that the Germans had gasoline cans with an excellent design. They had reverse engineered copies of those cans from British and American cans.
* Reverse engineering is just scientific method applied to practical problems.
* Some programmers reverse engineer a program just for intellectual curiousity.
* Technical documents for the German V2 rocket during World War II were captured by the Western Allies at the end of the war. Soviet and captured German engineers had to reverse engineer the rocket and reproduce technical documents and plans, working from captured hardware, in order to make their clone of the rocket, the R-1, which began the postwar Soviet rocket program that led to the R-7 and the beginning of the space race. (Wikipedia)
* A number of American B-29 bombers on missions over Japan during World War II were forced to land in Russia. The Russians, who did not have a similar strategic bomber, decided to reverse engineer the B-29. Within a few years they had developed the Tu-4, a near perfect copy.
* Sometimes a proprietary driver has to be reverse engineered to port it to another computer or operating system.
* Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing a subject system to create representations of the system at a higher level of abstraction.
* Reverse engineering can also be seen as going backwards through the development cycle.
