cxmon

Quick news

cxmon V3.2 is now available:

• 64-bit fixes to the 680x0 disassembler
• added AltiVec instructions to the PowerPC disassembler
• fixed bugs in the Z80 disassembler

General information

What is cxmon?

cxmon is an interactive command-driven file manipulation tool that is inspired by the "Amiga Monitor" by Timo Rossi. It has commands and features similar to a machine code monitor/debugger, but it lacks any functions for running/tracing code. There are, however, built-in PowerPC, 680x0, 80x86 (including x86-64), 6502 and Z80 disassemblers, and special support for disassembling MacOS code.

What can I do with cxmon?

The primary intention behind cxmon was to provide a tool for emulation developers and other people that need to manipulate or inspect binary data and machine code. It has been an invaluable tool during the development of Basilisk II, SheepShaver and Frodo. Possible uses of cxmon include

• disassembling executables in non-native formats, including raw formats like ROM images
• analyzing boot blocks
• patching program files
• removing unneeded headers from binary data files

You can also simply use it as an interactive workbench for manipulating files, or even as a hex calculator.

Examples

Here are some simple examples of what is possible with cxmon:

• Join "file1" and "file2" to "file3"

  [ 0 "file1"
  [ . "file2"
  ] 0 . "file3"
  

• Remove the first 24 bytes (e.g. an unneeded header) from a file

  [ 0 "file"
  ] 18 .-18 "file"
  

• Convert a four-character-code to its hex and decimal values

  ? 'RSRC'
  

• Disassemble LILO boot code

  [ 0 "/boot/boot.0800"
  d8086 0
  

• Create a modified version of cxmon that has " $" instead of "->" as a prompt

  [ 0 "cxmon"
  set size=. 
  h 0 . "->" 
  : . " $"   
  ] 0 size "cxmon1"
  

• Convert a binary file which contains 16-bit numbers in little-endian format to big-endian format (or vice-versa)

  [ 0 "file"
  yh 0 .-1 :>>8|:<<8
  ] 0 . "file"
  

Download cxmon

cxmon V3.2 (21.Jan.2007)

• cxmon-3.2.tar.gz Source tarball (185k)
• cxmon-3.2-1.src.rpm Source RPM (188k)
• cxmon-3.2-1.i386.rpm Binary for Linux/i386 (97k)
• cxmon-3.2-1.x86_64.rpm Binary for Linux/x86_64 (100k)

Anonymous CVS access

To download the current version of the sources via CVS:

$ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix login

$ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix checkout mon

For Unix users, there is an autogen.sh script that creates the files necessary for building which are not in CVS.
A Web interface to the CVS repository is also available.