The DIS12 Project Page
A Disassembler for the Motorola HC12/STAR12 Family
About dis12
dis12 was written for the 68HC812A4 microprocessor. It surely works on others of the family (ie MC9S12, 68HC912), but any new opcodes introduced by them would not likely decode properly. I don't have manuals for the other members, but will make the changes to dis12 if it proves necessary.
Download dis12
The most recent version of dis12 (including make and source files) can be downloaded here:
- dis12 version 1.00 (tgz file, 24104 bytes)
Files used by dis12
dis12 is not as clever as the some disassemblers that automatically sort out code and data. You have to tell it which is what if you want it to care. This is done with a parameter file.
The input format for dis12 is eiter a binary memory image file or an S-Record file. dis12 will figure out which it is.
In addition, you can specify a symbol file that relates addresses to symbols and dis12 will use these in the disassembly listing.
Output Format
Rather than have different modes for test listings and assembler source, the output format is assembler source with the object as comments on the right hand side of the page. For example,
ldaa #'0' ;$FDA4 $86 $30
dis12 makes two passes over the input file. The first pass identifies addresses that are labels and builds a symbol table. The second pass then produces the disassembly using the symbol table to identify labels for branch targets, targets of immediate loads, etc. In addition, an initial extra pass is made over an S-Record file to identify the address range(s) involved.
Parameter (Control) File Format
The control file is composed of lines of the form:
code start_address end_address
The possible codes are:
a - address words (like in tables). For instance, a C compiler will generate an array of addresses of strings. b - data bytes (like in tables) c - code area t - text area (strings) x - ignored (read but skipped) dis12 knows what areas are skipped in the caese of S-Record files, but not binary image file. For those, dis12 must be told what bytes to ignore. # - comments out the line, causing it to be ignored
The creation of the control file is a bit like black magic. There aren't any rules. You have to look at a hex dump and pick out the string and data areas and/or run dis12, examine the output, add strange areas to the control file, and repeat.
Symbol File Format
The symbol file is composed of lines of the form:
name hex_address
There can be any amount of white space (blank or tab) between the two, but 'hex_address' must be composed of either digits or the letters 'a' to 'f' in either case. For example:
SetUserVector A000 linptr 0A04
How dis12 works
dis12 tries hard to make an intelligible disassembly, but most of the cleverness can be disabled on the command line. dis12 assumes that all direct and extended access are to use labels rather than absolute numbers, which is quite reasonable. In many programs, most immediate 8 bit references with values in the range 32 to 127 are dealing with ASCII characters, as are some 16 bit immediate references produced by compilers. The first is still pretty reasonable; the second less so. Depending on the source of the program (compiler or hand assembly), often 16 bit immediate loads reference objects in the code or data space, but this is not true of, say compares or mathematical operations. It is fairly easy to know where the code space is, but less so the data space, so dis12 only assumes the immediate loads in the code space are labels. Targets of flow chaning opcodes (subroutine calls, jumps, branches, etc) are uses as labels. So to are the targets of direct and extended memory access and 16 bit indexed and indirect indexed accesses. The -b option controls this behavior of dis12, by allowing one to selectively enable or disable each of these features.
Command Line Syntax
The current syntax and options are:
dis12 [options] file -a file address classification file -b [+-]hhhh set the behavior of the disassembler 'hhhh' is a bit mask composed of: 0x0001 force 8 bit immed in 32..126 to char 0x0002 force long immediate to symbol 0x0004 force 9 bit pc indexed to symbol 0x0008 force other 9 bit indexed to symbol 0x0010 force 16 bit pc indexed to symbol 0x0020 force other 16 bit indexed to symbol 0x0040 force 16 bit pc indirect indexed to symbol 0x0080 force other 16 bit indirect indexed to symbol a '-' prefix removes a bit and a '+' prefix adds a bit and no prefix sets the mask to the value the default is 0x0077 -d turn debug on -D hhhh set debug to 'hhhh' -l file write listing to 'file' -o hhhh set org to 'hhhh' -s file symbol mapping file
About the Author, Copyright stuff
The whole dis12 project is Copyright by
Carl Kreider
22297 CR 28
Goshen, IN 46526
dis12 was written on Linux and, as such, should run on any other unix like system. However, I have not used any esoteric features, so it should compile and run on anything that has an ANSI C compiler. One possible exception would be getopt(). I have included source for a reasonable version.
Finally, I am not releasing this under any particular freeware license, but it _is_ free, and I expect it to remain so.
Have fun!
Carl Kreider
Please send suggestions and inquiries concerning this page to ckreideracm.org
The original URL of this page is http://hc12web.de/dis12/
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