[Coco] Rainbow IDE 2.0 Basic and Gold in the works

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

I think that the OP is talking about a disassembler that is part emulator.

Starting at an entry point or other point that is suspected is code, the CPU
registers are set up with normal initial contents and the code sequence is
followed,  all branches are remembered and are followed taken in turn until
all possible code sequences are found.

This allows the code and data parts of the program to be identified without
the user doing anything other than saying "do it".

Instruction types for data access effective addresses are marked as data.

The closer to a real emulator, the better the automated process.

This is a much harder process than any of the 6x09 disassemblers I have
seen. No grease required and this will produce better results for most all
people without them being an really good expert programmer, of which there
are fewer and fewer today.

Stephen H. Fischer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger Taylor" <webmaster at coco3.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 4:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Rainbow IDE 2.0 Basic and Gold in the works


> At 02:29 PM 12/30/2006, you wrote:
>>Cool! How about a disassembler of the same class as "The Source III"
>>for the CoCo?
>>
>>Cheers,
>>Fedor
>
>
> A partial and incomplete interactive disassembler exists in the
> current Rainbow IDE versions, but no documentation or support is
> provided because it's totally useless at this point.  It's easier for
> me to just hide those features for now while I keep working on it.
>
> The idea is to let the IDE import a binary such as a CoCo game, which
> produces a .dsm file containing intermediate code (not .asm source at
> this point) that the IDE can understand and display in an
> editor.  The dsm editor will let the programmer set label points and
> names, mark data sections, etc. then the disassembler can be called
> again and again on this intermediate file to produce more correct dsm
> files.  The dsm files will be turned into asm files in the end, and
> if they can be reassembled with CCASM and run then the disassembly
> process was successful.  I want to make the whole process seamless...
> binary to dsm, dsm to asm, asm to bin, in one click of the Disassemble
> button.
>
> While the intermediate code editor is up you can make on-the-fly
> changes and then try to rebuild each time until you see the game or
> program running in the emulator.  Keep in mind that the game or
> program that you see running is not the original binary, but the
> disassembled and reassembled binary.  Wow.  If it crashes then
> something is wrong in the intermediate code.
>
> Ofcourse, I'm talking in the future tense on some of these ideas
> because that is what my goal is and where it's heading now.  I'll try
> to put as many automatic features in the intermediate code generator
> as possible, but anybody who's tried to disassemble code before knows
> that it's 50% elbow grease no matter how ya cut it.  :)
>
>
> -- 
> Roger Taylor