[Coco] Portal-9 disassembler

[Bob Devries]

Roger that sounds like magic.

Would that I had it yonks ago when I was trying to add things to a number of 
utility programmes that were for example, hard coded for single sided 
drives, or 600bd printer. SIGH.
--
Regards, Bob Devries. Dalby, Queensland, Australia.
Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding on to.
http://e4god.com/freeblogs/bdevries/


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger Taylor" <rtaylor at bayou.com>
To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 8:15 AM
Subject: [Coco] Portal-9 disassembler


>I am starting on the disassembler tool for Portal-9 tonight.  What I'll be 
>aiming for is the ability to start a project, load in any binary CoCo 
>binary as a component, click Unbuild, and an .asm file will pop up in it's 
>own window.  If you then tag the .asm file as assemblable, a Build of the 
>same project will produce the binary again.  The new binary won't overwrite 
>the original one since project files are kept in one directory while the 
>output files are kept in another one.
>
> A grid will be used for tweaking subsequent unbuilds.  The grid will look 
> similar to a spreadsheet layout and let you define where opcodes and data 
> are, the starting address for execution, etc.  The disassembler will 
> follow the code's branches and jumps to help automatically separate code 
> and data.  You'll be able to give predefined label names to certain 
> addresses, so the next unbuild won't automatically assume something like 
> L000100 for an address if it's already defined.  So, a disassemble session 
> will eventually turn into two files; the original binary and the tweaker 
> file (grid).  Everything is saved as the project automatically so you can 
> work on it again another day, or whatever.
>
> The goal is to let novice and experts both take all of the old CoCo games 
> and programs out there, convert them back to source code, and use Portal-9 
> to rebuild the programs.  Ofcourse, you'll be able to do what you want 
> once the program is in source code form.
>
> I think a typical session for taking an old popular game, and rewriting 
> it, etc. would be:
>
> 1) create project (like Pitfall 2005)
> 2) open binary component (like PITFALL.ROM)
> 3) click Unbuild
> 4) observe grid and reports therein, make changes where needed
> 5) observe the produced .asm file (pops up in it's own window)
> 6) repeat #3 until no mysteries are reported about the original binary or 
> the produced source code looks promising
>
> -- 
> Roger Taylor
>
>
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