Recommended Disassembler?

[shawnerz]

All,
This is Shawn from the Grid rugged computer group over on Yahoo. I am trying to disassemble and understand the model 1520 (80286) BIOS code so that we can make an attempt to get the laptops to boot from Compact Flash.
I've seen the pages for IDA Pro disassembler and PE Explorer. They seem a bit of overkill for a my limited use. Any body have any ideas or suggestions? Am I going about this the correct way?
Thanks,
-Shawn

 

[sergey]

I used "V-Communications Sourcer". It works fairly well for disassembling BIOSes, including adding comments and putting labels that make sense.

 

[Chuck(G)]

IDA for me is hands-down the best disassembler.

If you want, wandering around is the "free" version of, I think, IDA 4. It might be good enough for what you need.

 

[Krille]

I'm with Chuck here. IDA is the way to go.

 

[gslick]

I'm with Chuck here. IDA is the way to go.

Does the IDA v5.0 freeware version only support x86 CPU models?

What would you use for say 6502, 6800, 8080, Z-80?

 

[Chuck(G)]

It's been so long, I don't recall if that was included in the "free" copy. Why not try it and see?

 

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have to give this a shot too. I want to disassemble AMIBIOS HIFLEX to see if I can figure out how to recalculate the checksum.

 

[Krille]

Does the IDA v5.0 freeware version only support x86 CPU models?

I think so. That's all I know/use anyway.

What would you use for say 6502, 6800, 8080, Z-80?

The complete list of supported processors is here.

 

[RandomVariations]

What would you use for say 6502, 6800, 8080, Z-80?

Older freeware versions of IDA supported more processors. IDA 3.7 supported 80x86, Z80, 8051, 6502 and PDP-11.
IDA 4.1 freeware supports Z80, 80x86, and 8051.

For 6502 support I have used da65 from the cc65 project as a basic disassembler while porting the Apple II Infocom interpreter to the Apple 1 with a CFFA1 card.

I used IDA 4.1 extensively while working on my CP/M on a credit card terminal project which uses a Z180 processor.