Centipede BBS Source Code Help

Racer · August 13, 2010, 11:33 AM

I downloaded a copy of Centipede BBS's source code available here: http://snowpig.org/centipede/dl-centipede.htm

Anyway, they are all PRG files but they are not standard basic programs. You can load them and list, but you will only get a couple of lines listed and some garbage. My guess there has to be an assembler running for it to show the complete listing. My question is, anyone have any idea what assembler that might be?

BigDumbDinosaur · August 13, 2010, 12:21 PM

Quote from: Racer on August 13, 2010, 11:33 AM
I downloaded a copy of Centipede BBS's source code available here: http://snowpig.org/centipede/dl-centipede.htm

Anyway, they are all PRG files but they are not standard basic programs. You can load them and list, but you will only get a couple of lines listed and some garbage. My guess there has to be an assembler running for it to show the complete listing. My question is, anyone have any idea what assembler that might be?

Most likely they are M/L with a BASIC front end. Usuually you will see a SYS at the start which causes the following machine code to execute.

You don't use an assembler to "list" machine code. You can use the C-128's built in M/L monitor to disassemble the code. However, without the original source code files, it'll be slow going.

Racer · August 13, 2010, 12:40 PM

No, they are source code files.

There is an assembler for the C64 that works similar. If you load in the program file without the assembler running you get a little bit of code and mostly nonsense. My guess is that it is creating its own tokenized code and has to be running first.

Its not a ML file with a basic header, its actual source.

LokalHorst · August 13, 2010, 09:25 PM

Make a screenshot from star-commander with that file opened in hex mode, then I might be able to tell the assembler which was used.
Try Turbo-Assembler or Turbo-Assembler-Macro+ it was very popular and saved files as compressed PRG by default.

mhoney · August 28, 2010, 11:03 PM

I too am interested in finding out what assembler is used for the machine code. Will update as I find out more...

Pinacolada · August 31, 2010, 01:31 PM

Merlin 128?

bacon · September 03, 2010, 12:29 AM

It says in the readme file that all text files are standard PETSCII, and it seems that's the case with these files. I ran them through petcat which output a text file with assembly source code interspersed with Commodore control codes (see attachments), so my guess is that it's supposed to be opened with a text-based assembler.

Btw, the source files are not supposed to be .prg files, they (and all the other files) unzip as .lbr files, so they should probably be stored as such on the C= filesystem. The C128 doesn't know about that format, but the should recognize it. Or you can store them as seq files and possibly be able to open them with a seq viewer program.

Racer · March 10, 2011, 07:26 AM

Here is what I found out, in case anyone is interested.

The source files are in BUDDY assembler format but the files are slightly corrupted.

I have been able to retrieve at least most of the code by running the MAKE-ASCII program that comes with the Buddy Assembler to convert the files into SEQ files for use with the EBUD Assembler.

Not sure how they got corrupted. I dont know if it happened when they were combined in LBR or what. I do think I can rescue most if not all of the code.