decompilation as archiving? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

1 Dec 2006

On Thu, 30 Nov 2006, Richard wrote:

...
  Has anyone considered decompilation (producing sources
from binaries)
...
  as a way of archiving system or application software
that is defunct?
...

 I know lots of people have disassembled ROM listings and created
 commented ASM listings from the ROM, but what about larger systems
 where hand-disassembly is impractical? 
Hand-disassembly is just the start. Vast machineries of
automated disassembly/decompilation is used
throughout the world in piracy and reverse-engineering
activities. These sorts of tools have been in existence
for at least 30 years, very likely 40 or 50 years.

Related to these machinations are other tools used
in reverse-engineering, including emulators, simulators,
in-circuit emulators, logic analyzers, etc.

All of these tools are also used in retro-computing
as defined by many different groups: video gamers,
emulation of historically important systems by academics,
and everything in between.

But what you describe goes way beyond simple archiving,
and more into the tools that let you analyze and
appreciate the code. If you can combine the code with
the original designers, original users, original
business documents, etc., then you are really on the
road to a complete recreation of not only the code,
but the world at the time.

As a classic example, 25 years ago you could buy a tool
that disassembled your CP/M binaries and turned them
into *commented* sources. Not the original source, of
course!

Tim.