7 Apr
2004
7 Apr
'04
2:58 p.m.
From: "Scott Stevens"
<sastevens(a)earthlink.net>
On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 16:08:17 -0400
Jim Donoghue <jim(a)smithy.com> wrote:
Hi
It is interesting that my definition of a disassembler is
quite a bit different than yours. I would call this a code
lister. A disassembler includes comments, selecting data types,
labeling branching and entry points and statistical cross referencing
( usually as comments in code ). This is often an interactive
process.
I guess writing one's own disassemblers tends to spoil a person.
Dwight
I'm trying to find a Z80 disassembler for
Linux. There are a bunch of
DOS ones out there, doesn't do me any good. A long time ago I had
downloaded one that was source and compiled it, but I can't remember
what it was. Anybody know of one?
Jim
Anything as simple as a Z80 disassembler is a stdin/stdout app anyway. 
7 Apr
7 Apr
4:14 p.m.
On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 16:58:25 -0700 (PDT)
"Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey(a)amd.com> wrote:
I was referring to 'simplicity' in the matter of the resources of the host system
it uses, not the complexity of the actual disassembler. Good disassemblers are very very
complex and powerful tools.
A good disassembler could have a powerful interface using simple 'curses'
functionality or whatever the crude equivalent would be on MS-DOS.
From:
"Scott Stevens" <sastevens(a)earthlink.net>
On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 16:08:17 -0400
Jim Donoghue <jim(a)smithy.com> wrote:
Hi
It is interesting that my definition of a disassembler is
quite a bit different than yours. I would call this a code
lister. A disassembler includes comments, selecting data types,
labeling branching and entry points and statistical cross referencing
( usually as comments in code ). This is often an interactive
process.
I guess writing one's own disassemblers tends to spoil a person.
Dwight
I'm trying to find a Z80 disassembler for
Linux. There are a bunch of
DOS ones out there, doesn't do me any good. A long time ago I had
downloaded one that was source and compiled it, but I can't remember
what it was. Anybody know of one?
Jim
Anything as simple as a Z80 disassembler is a stdin/stdout app anyway. 
4:44 p.m.
A disassembler includes comments, selecting data
types, labeling
branching and entry points and statistical cross referencing (
usually as comments in code ). This is often an interactive process.
Try the disassembler I posted a link to a bit earlier today. (To save
bother: ftp.rodents.montreal.qc.ca:/mouse/disas/src/.)
It's pretty close to a disassembler in this sense. (It doesn't do
"statistical cross referencing", whatever that is, but a text-save plus
a little sed/awk groveling could probably get it.) I wrote it
specifically to help people figure out what binaries of unknown
provenance were *really* doing.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
8 Apr
8 Apr
11:46 a.m.
On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
It is interesting that my definition of a
disassembler is
quite a bit different than yours. I would call this a code
lister. A disassembler includes comments, selecting data types,
COMMENTS!? I'd like to see a disassembler comment code! Humans
even are areally bad at this...
2:40 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 08, 2004 at 01:46:55PM -0700, Tom Jennings wrote:
On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
I'm working with a tool that decompiles Z-Machine binaries (think "Zork")
into Inform source code. It injects comments into the output code when you
describe enum data types. Since decompiling is an iterative process, one
of the features I want to add to this tool is comments in the control file
that are copied verbatim to the output source file. It puts the burden on
the person running the decompiler to understand the output, but it would
then be _possible_ to have commented output.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 08-Apr-2004 23:32 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -76.5 F (-60.3 C) Windchill -108.7 F (-78.2 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 7.4 kts Grid 079 Barometer 672.4 mb (10913 ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
It is interesting that my definition of a
disassembler is
quite a bit different than yours. I would call this a code
lister. A disassembler includes comments, selecting data types,
COMMENTS!? I'd like to see a disassembler comment code! Humans
even are areally bad at this... 
4:57 p.m.
I'm working with a tool that decompiles Z-Machine
binaries (think "Zork")
into Inform source code. It injects comments into the output code when you
describe enum data types. Since decompiling is an iterative process, one
of the features I want to add to this tool is comments in the control file
that are copied verbatim to the output source file. It puts the burden on
the person running the decompiler to understand the output, but it would
then be _possible_ to have commented output.
Are you starting with one of the pre-existing decompilers?
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net
6:41 p.m.
New subject: Zcode disassembler (was Re: Z80 disassembler for Linux)
On Thu, Apr 08, 2004 at 08:57:36PM -0500, Eric Dittman wrote:
I've been working with "reform"... I have a data file that reconstructs
nearly all the functions and globals with reasonable names for "Starcross"
and "Planetfall" (I think I don't have 'good' names for 3
functions).
Many of the variable names are right out of Infocom source, so it's fairly
easy to read. Due to differences between how Inform and ZILCH (Infocom's
compiler) generate tables and grammar entries, it's not possible (yet) to
compile the generated Inform back into a running binary, but you _can_ see
how the game and the parser work.
There is (still) a movement afoot to recreate a ZIL compiler. Given how
advanced Inform is, it would be a curiosity, but I think it would be
interesting (but then again, I've spent so much time poring over the MDL
Zork sources that I can _read_ ZIL).
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 09-Apr-2004 03:32 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -77 F (-60.6 C) Windchill -113.6 F (-80.90 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 8.19 kts Grid 077 Barometer 673.4 mb (10876. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
I'm
working with a tool that decompiles Z-Machine binaries (think "Zork")
into Inform source code....
Are you starting with one of the pre-existing decompilers? 
5:52 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I'm working with a tool that decompiles Z-Machine
binaries (think "Zork")
into Inform source code. It injects comments into the output code when you
describe enum data types. Since decompiling is an iterative process, one
of the features I want to add to this tool is comments in the control file
that are copied verbatim to the output source file. It puts the burden on
the person running the decompiler to understand the output, but it would
then be _possible_ to have commented output.
But that is a special case of software decoding.
The only software I have seen that did that type of stuff of adding
comments, was a program to diss-assemble the PC bios. I belive this was
to get around the fact you could not sell a source listing of the PC
bios but you could disssemble the ROM had on your AT.
-ethan
PS. That still don't help me Win at
ZORK! :)
13 Apr
13 Apr
2:30 p.m.
Tom writes:
COMMENTS!? I'd like to see a disassembler comment
code! Humans
even are areally bad at this...
Ok...you ask, you receive...from a PA-RISC disassembler:
offset instruct instruction disassembled comments
------ -------- ------------------------ --------
...
460c: 48212691 LDW -3256(0,r1),r1 ; [W r1-3256]
4610: 483f0078 LDW 60(0,r1),r31 ; [W [W r1-3256]+60]
...
61a0: 0a7f0414 SUB r31,r19,r20 ; ([W sp-80]) - ([W sp-64])
...
643c: e7e02938 BLE 1180(4,r31) ; P_2c49c
6440: 081f0242 COPY r31,rp ; $00006444
; r26 = $00045c20 --> $00000000
; r25 = $0003c72c --> $48454c50 ("HELP")
The first comment is fairly obvious, the second is a bit more
sophisticated. The comment "[W xxx]" means "32-bit word loaded from
memory at address xxx". Thus, we see that the instruction at offset
4610 is a load via a pointer.
The comment on 61a0 is useful in many cases.
The last section (starting at offset 643c) shows a procedure call to
an as-yet-unnamed procedure (temporarily called P_2c49c), passing
two parameters (code to load the parameters not shown above). The
first parameter (in r26) is the constant 0, loaded from memory (which
is unusual), the second parameter (in r25) is the integer constant
corresponding to the ASCII characters "HELP" (big-endian machine, BTW).
Stan
--
Stan Sieler
sieler(a)allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html
7406
days inactive
7412
days old
8 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
dickset＠amanda.spole.gov -
dittman＠dittman.net -
dwight.elvey＠amd.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
sastevens＠earthlink.net -
sieler＠allegro.com -
tomj＠wps.com