It's a heavy lift & overkill, but GCC (gas) can be made to cross-compile for/from any reasonable machine. That gives you a complete toolset - but it's a lot of work.
If it were my project, I'd define some macros in MACRO-11 to create a cross-assembler, as IIRC Whirlwind has 16 bit wordsize. MACRO-11 has a reasonable set of operators and macro pseudo-ops. Define the Whirlwind instructions as macros, and you're all set. People have done this for early micros - it's not quite native and can be a bit awkward - but it works and can be put together with minimal effort. You can output absolute binary from the assembler - or link/task build if you want psects or libraries. But with the small memory size, MACRO will do. If you want 32-bit words, there's always MACRO-32 - pretty much the same macro capabilities. For a host, you can use a simh PDP-11 or VAX - whatever you're comfortable with. Disassemblers - it's pretty easy to write a trivial one. It gets complicated if you want to tease out subroutines, create a symbol table & data. But with only 2KW - a simple dump (e.g. address + octal + instruction decode + text decode in fixed columns) probably suffices. An editor (like emacs) that will do rectangular cut and paste is likely less trouble than creating a fancy disassembler. (Again, due to the small memory and word size.) You can invest arbitrary amounts of time to create better tools; worthwhile for larger machines, but I would go for 'good enough' for something as small and simple as Whirlwind... On 05-Sep-17 20:54, Bob Supnik wrote: > Guy is looking to build a Whirlwind simulator, eventually. > > I don't know of any assemblers like that. All the cross-assemblers > I've seen are purpose built, nowadays mostly in Python. > > > -------- Forwarded Message -------- > Subject: retargetable assembler > Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2017 10:38:08 -0400 > From: Guy Fedorkow <guy.fedor...@gmail.com> > To: Bob Supnik <b...@supnik.org> > > > > hi Bob, > I'm continuing to explore the Whirlwind world, one tiny step at a time. > I thought I'd look around for retargetable cross-assemblers and > disassemblers that might work with the machine's instruction set... > this must come up in the simh world... do you have a favorite package? > > Thanks > /guy fedorkow > > > _______________________________________________ > Simh mailing list > Simh@trailing-edge.com > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
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