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Originally Posted by magus57
From what I've read, people say that it's hard to do, but not impossible, and I'm one of those people that keep on going until somebody says (most of the time with proof) it is impossible. So IS there a program with the same capabilities of a emulator, except to show the code rather than execute it?
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What you need is a disassembler. Disassemblers convert machine code to assembly code, but be warned, it will probably be very hard to read. For example, memory references will be by address or some pergenerated label, rather than intelligible symbolic names, and comments will (obviously) not be reconstructed. Also, some programmers used tricks (such as self-modifying code) to fool disassemblers, and get them to show erroneous code.
Assuming you can find a disassembler for the CPU in question, and are fluent in assembly language for said CPU, you will still need to learn enough about the non-CPU architecture of the original system to understand the code. As an example, on most 80x86-based PCs, the programmable interrupt controller (well, controllers; there's usually two), programmable interval timer, and other such things are located at standard port addresses, but this is a function of the PC architecture,
not the 80x86 architecture.
In short, it would probably be easier to clone the game through external observation than to try to directly translate the code. You can try ripping the data (sprites, sounds, etc) from the ROM image, provided you can get the tools to do so (I'm sure they exist somewhere).