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Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 07:36
by Smonson
I did a bit of googling and I can see there's no annotated TOS 1.4 disassembly out there. It's very surprising to me considering that so much work has been put into understanding every other part of the ST system. I'm just wondering if that's because there's a chance of legal ramifications, or is it just because it's a huge amount of work?

I know about the disassembled BIOS (old version) in Atari ST Internals, and the released GEM source code (post-STFM versions).

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 09:44
by terriblefire
Smonson wrote: 09 Feb 2020 07:36 I did a bit of googling and I can see there's no annotated TOS 1.4 disassembly out there. It's very surprising to me considering that so much work has been put into understanding every other part of the ST system. I'm just wondering if that's because there's a chance of legal ramifications, or is it just because it's a huge amount of work?

I know about the disassembled BIOS (old version) in Atari ST Internals, and the released GEM source code (post-STFM versions).
There is source form of TOS 2.06 bios / xbios

https://github.com/sarnau/AtariSTRomListings

Armed with this whats the value in hand annotating the ROM? given there are multiple versions of each ROM (UK, USA, German etc variations) etc.

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:14
by Smonson
Just thinking about making little additions/changes to TOS to fix issues or add small features etc. An annotated disassembly can help to locate the code that you're looking for.

Thanks for the 2.06 source link, I didn't find that one in my search. It seems to be exactly what I'm looking for apart from the fact that it's 2.06 and can't be used on an STFM. Probably it is still very similar to 1.04 and extremely helpful.

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:18
by Smonson
I see the 2.06 code is just the BIOS, so it's actually about the same as the code in Atari ST Internals. Not as interesting as I'd hoped.

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:19
by terriblefire
Smonson wrote: 09 Feb 2020 10:14 Just thinking about making little additions/changes to TOS to fix issues or add small features etc. An annotated disassembly can help to locate the code that you're looking for.

Thanks for the 2.06 source link, I didn't find that one in my search. It seems to be exactly what I'm looking for apart from the fact that it's 2.06 and can't be used on an STFM. Probably it is still very similar to 1.04 and extremely helpful.
2.06 works on all versions of the ST.
TOS 2.06 was the last version of TOS available for the ST/STE range of computers and provides much needed upgrades to the desktop.
Formats: 2 chip ROMs (256K)
Machines: 520ST, 1040ST, 520STE, 1040STE
http://www.avtandil.narod.ru/tose.html

It was supposed to be a rationalisation of everything that went before.

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:21
by terriblefire
Smonson wrote: 09 Feb 2020 10:18 I see the 2.06 code is just the BIOS, so it's actually about the same as the code in Atari ST Internals. Not as interesting as I'd hoped.
The rest of it the OS is pretty much open source in EmuTOS. Just fixed up lots by now.

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:28
by Smonson
terriblefire wrote: 09 Feb 2020 10:19 2.06 works on all versions of the ST.
D'oh! I had totally forgotten this. Excellent!

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:29
by terriblefire
Smonson wrote: 09 Feb 2020 10:28
terriblefire wrote: 09 Feb 2020 10:19 2.06 works on all versions of the ST.
D'oh! I had totally forgotten this. Excellent!
Also a very quick google... can find you the rest of the sources. e.g.

http://www.retroarchive.org/cpm/archive ... emdos.html

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:51
by czietz
I think a disassembly of the parts of TOS written in C wouldn't be very helpful for understanding what's going on. You can ask Thorsten Otto, who reverse-engineered the entire TOS 2.06/3.06, providing assembler or C files, as appropriate: https://docs.dev-docs.org/htm/search.ph ... .06%2F3.06. With his files you can build a binary 100% identical to the official TOS 2.06/3.06 ROMs.

Also, because of the Line-F-trickery used by Atari, TOS 1.04 isn't particularly easy to understand, anyway.

Re: Why is there no TOS 1.4 annotated disassembly?

Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:59
by czietz
terriblefire wrote: 09 Feb 2020 10:29 Also a very quick google... can find you the rest of the sources. e.g.

http://www.retroarchive.org/cpm/archive ... emdos.html
Note that this differs in several places from the GEMDOS implementation that is actually in Atari TOS.