--- Brian Chase <bdc_at_world.std.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Gene Ehrich wrote:
>
> > I remember back in the early days at IBM right before the 360 was announced
> > that they were talking in the industry of the possibility of a
> > disassembler. Most people poo-poo'd it as impossible.
>
> Maybe hindsight is always 20/20, but I don't see why machine code
> disassembly would be viewed as an impossible task? I mean, weren't people
> able to look at hex or octal dumps and translate them into the
> corresponding mnemonics? This generally isn't a task that requires a high
> IQ, it's basically a simple lookup operation. Hell, the problem is better
> suited to computer based solutions than it is to people doing it.
Think of the machines in place when the 360 was king. The real problem
isn't the instructions, it's knowing where to put labels and what is data
and what is instruction (at least, in a Von Neumann machine, unlike the
Harvard Architecture of the original questor's PIC).
I have a disassembler for the 6502, written in PET BASIC. It's dog slow,
but it does work. Most of the trouble is at guessing where the labels
should go and keeping them straight.
-ethan
=====
Visit "The Seventh Continent"
http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Received on Fri Jun 29 2001 - 00:52:48 BST