Re: [TUHS] Disassemblers

[Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1491 bytes --]

Ah -- if it was adb you redid, no doubt of its power.  I used adb for a
long time -- PDP-11/VAX/68K but as you said, you could learn a lot about
your system.   FWIW:  we embedded adb into RTU, calling it kdb.   We didn't
have no fancy VMs to run the system under, when it halted, it halted.   On
a personal machine that was not a problem and adb/kdb was very cool.

Clem

On Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 5:50 PM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Although upon reflection, I think what I did was fix 'adb' and call it
> 'db'. Haven't had my coffee yet this morning.
>
> -rob
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 7:49 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For v8 or thereabouts, I spent some time fixing some fundamental bugs in
>> db and found that it was arcane but remarkably powerful. Since it was lower
>> level, it avoided the endemic debugging problem of misleading you about
>> your program: All it could do was tell you what the machine was doing.
>> (Cdb, sdb, and adb were, at least in my experience, always lying to you.) I
>> may be the only person who appreciated db fully. Once the bugs were gone
>> you really could use it to good effect, as long as you understood the CPU.
>>
>> But it was buggy and arcane, no question about that.
>>
>> -rob
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 6:46 AM Richard Salz <rich.salz@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I remember compiling and playing Langston's "empire" that I was told
>>> came from a decompiled executable. This was in the 4.2 days.
>>>
>>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2850 bytes --]