Antic Disassembler

This month's Super Disk Bonus is a fast, powerful machine language disassembler written entirely in MAC/65 assembler code Programmers will enjoy the ease with which Antic Disassembler turns binary files into source code listings that can be examined to teach you new techniques.

Antic Disassembler works on 8-bit Atari computers with at least 48K memory.

PROGRAM GUIDE
When I first began programming in machine language, I searched for a disassembler that could do it all. I wanted a software tool that would disassemble binary files and show me the actual source code, so that I could discover those neat little programming tricks used in many public domain programs that were circulating at the time. I also wanted to get a hard copy of the disassembled listing.

But I mostly wanted a program that would do this fast. Well, I never found one, so I wrote Antic Disassembler.

GETTING STARTED
Copy ANTICDIS.EXE from the Antic November 1988 Disk onto another disk which has been formatted with DOS 2 or DOS 2.5. (Make sure this disk has the DOS.SYS file on it). Finally, rename ANTICDIS.EXE to AUTORUNSYS.

To start the program, turn off your Atari and place your Antic Disassembler disk in drive 1. Remove all cartridges (XL/XE owners should hold down the [OPTION] key) and turn on your Atari. Antic Disassembler will automatically load and run.

Antic Disassembler gives you three options-disassemble from memory, from a file, or from disk sectors. Simply type in the right number at the Choice> prompt and press [RETURN].

If you're disassembling from memory, the program will ask for the starting and ending memory addresses. This and all other numerical input in the program can be entered as either hexadecimal or decimal values. To enter hex, precede the input with a dollar sign ($).

If you want to disassemble from a file, the program will ask for the filename. You must enter the device as well as the filename, or you will get an error message. The file will be stored in memory before the actual disassembly, so the size of the file you can disassemble depends upon the amount of memory in your computer.

Finally, when you disassemble from disk sectors, you will be asked for the beginning sector number, the number of sectors you want disassembled, and the location in memory that you want these to be disassembled from. This last option is best used when you know where this code is placed after the computer loads it from the disk. If you don't give Antic Disassembler the correct address here, all direct jumps in the code will be incorrect and the disassembly will be useless.

If you type [P1 directly after your choice at the main menu, the disassembly will be printed on your printer and displayed onscreen.

If you type [D], your disassembled listing will be written in a disk file. You need a lot of room on your disk if you choose this option be-cause the output file will become very large quite fast.

When the program is disassembling, you can use the [CONTROL] [1] toggle to pause the output. To stop the output, just press the [START] key. (Makes sense, doesn't it?)

Your November 1988 Antic Disk will be shipped to you within 24 hours after your order is received. This month's disk features Antic Disassembler plus every type-in program from this issue-and two special extra bonus programs, Deluxe Adventure Creation Kit and the Lightspeed C Fractals Demo.

On the Antic Disk: ANTICDIS.EXE Download