Hi, I have to agree here, what exactly does this tool do?
Writing a disassembler is not that hard. I have written several over the years, one tried to decompile Fortran II for the I7090. Many will do detection of code verse data and auto generation of labels. I then use the output of these to generate some source file and assemble it and use the tool on output and continue comparing until the assembled binary matches the original binary. Rich > What exactly does that tool do, then? > > I mean, I already have several disassemblers, which I can throw > PDP-11 code at, and which gives me assembler output, that I can then > continue working on. > > It was actually not so uncommon that you needed to do this back in > the day, which is why several such tools exists inside the PDP-11 > world. > > Johnny > > On 2019-07-31 04:52, Galen wrote: > > I’m curious to hear how many in the simh community have significant > > interest, or most especially experience, in reverse engineering > > binary code. Although there’s no reason to limit the discussion to > > simh-ers, this is the retrocomputing community I know the best, so > > I thought I’d ask here first.) > > > > Since there is so much historic software to which the sources are > > no longer available, reverse engineering appears to me to have a > > lot applicability here. > > > > Perhaps you’ve heard already of Ghidra, the software reverse > > engineering framework that NSA open-sourced earlier this year? > > > > I do not and have never worked for NSA, but I have some experience > > of how Ghidra models instruction set architectures. I’ve even used > > it with a retro architecture myself, the Z80, and managed to help > > solve some small problems with how Ghidra modeled a few specific > > instructions. > > > > I have a real soft spot, though, for the PDP-11, which NSA’s > > otherwise-wonderful tool doesn’t support. Way back when, in college > > and the first 10 years or so of my career, I worked a great deal > > with PDP-11 assembly language as well as knowing enough about the > > hardware architecture and RSX-11 internals to do some simple > > drivers and other low-level software. > > > > I’d love an opportunity to help bring support for the PDP-11 to > > Ghidra but I don’t have time right now to kick off such a project. > > I could certainly help out significantly, though. > > > > How to model an instruction set architecture in Ghidra isn’t > > something you can learn from the Ghidra docs, let alone from any > > other publicly available tutorial material. But Ghidra does include > > sources for its models of the ISAs that NSA has released support > > for. Through experience with several of those over the last few > > years I’ve picked up enough knowledge to help explain some of what > > you’d find in those models. > > > > What’s the interest here? > > > > Galen > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Simh mailing list > > Simh@trailing-edge.com > > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh > > > -- ========================================================================== Richard Cornwell r...@sky-visions.com http://sky-visions.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-cornwell-991076107 ========================================================================== _______________________________________________ Simh mailing list Simh@trailing-edge.com http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
