He said in the talk that he didn't have the manual for that specific processor.
That doesn't excuse the lack of attention to detail and doing research before spinning it as something new. Especially since this was in the publicly-available datasheet that one could find with very little searching.
What about the part where he developed a tool that automated the process of discovering hidden opcodes?
If _I_ were going to make such a tool, I would use the data sheet to confirm the tool did what it was supposed to. Given that he lacked the data sheet at the time he developed the tool, it still seems pretty impressive that the tool worked.
