dm42decode - a command-line decoder tool

[Thomas Okken]

(12-28-2023 05:10 PM)Pierre Wrote:  MERCI !!!

No problem!

(12-28-2023 05:10 PM)Pierre Wrote:  No "usine à gaz":

Thank you for enriching my vocabulary with a nice new idiom. :-)

(12-28-2023 11:30 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 02:28 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  Maybe I'll end up posting only the Plus42 versions of these tools. I'm not sure how much value there is in having converters that don't handle the Plus42 extensions.

Since Free42 is a proper subset of Plus42 (I think?!?), won't the Plus42 versions work for both kinds of users?

The Free42 instruction set is indeed a proper subset of the Plus42 instruction set. Other than the effects of applying the decoders to HP-41 programs containing non-HP-42S-compatible XROMs, I don't see the usefulness of the Free42 versions of the converters either. I had written them before I thought of that, that's how little coding it took.

Assuming no one comes up with a use case that justifies keeping the Free42 versions, I'll scrap them and publish the Plus42 versions on both the Free42 and Plus42 home pages.

[Thomas Klemm]

This is not really a use case but more about how easy an error can be detected.

What happens if an instruction of the Plus42 is accidentally part of the listing of a Free42 program?
How does Free42 handle such a case?

It happened to me multiple times that an instruction was ignored because it was slightly different from a legal one.
But this was easy to detect because the number of lines did not agree.

However if it was translated into an instruction of the Plus42 I wouldn't notice it.
But I might experience a strange behavior of the calculator that can be hard to debug.

On the other hand if two versions exist, people might mix them up and try to translate a program for the Plus42 with the utilities of the Free42.

[Thomas Okken]

(12-29-2023 12:34 AM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  This is not really a use case but more about how easy an error can be detected.

Sounds like a use case to me.

(12-29-2023 12:34 AM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  On the other hand if two versions exist, people might mix them up and try to translate a program for the Plus42 with the utilities of the Free42.

That could happen, but it should be obvious when it does, or, at least, easy to spot. Applying Free42 txt2raw to a Plus42 listing will create a raw file that is too short, and applying Free42 raw2txt to a Plus42 raw file will create a listing containing XROMs.

[stevenfalco]

Well - It looks like I at least started something with my initial post, even if folks didn't much care for my approach. :-)

Thanks Thomas for your tools. I enjoyed writing mine because it gave me a much better understanding of the format of stored programs.

BTW, I found one program "qpi.raw" that works fine in Plus42 but which fails to convert when using the Swiss Micros Converter - I get a "Status: Invalid Global opcode at PC:0264" error.

This apparently happens because qpi.raw has a somewhat strange END statement. Using my tool with the -x option (to show decoded bytes along side the instructions) shows:

279 END c6 57 09

rather than the more common c0 00 0d.

qpi.raw is available here: qpi.raw in case anyone wants to play with it.

I will report the error on the Swiss Micros forum, but I haven't been approved for an account there yet.