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OT: Invese assembly Q

I have been using a program provided by Casio to run one of their label printers, and i hate it, because it "feeds" too much trailer after printing real stuff (desired image). I wrote them in Japan where this all was created,asking for a fixed program, or source code (saying i would cheerfully sign any non-disclosure) and got a polite "no". So, i would like to use a semi-intelligent (or directable?) inverse assembler to generate (initially uncommented) assembly code so i could cut out 90 percent of that "feed" (would use MASM to generate new EXE). I vaguely remember roughly 20-30 years ago there was IASS and a few other dis-assemblers, and one was fairly" intelligent acting for a one-pass operation; one might have been able to use it in multiple passes to spiff up the output but do not quote me on that as it was too looooooong ago. Help?

Reply to
Robert Baer
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You've not indicated what the electrical interface to the printer is. E.g., does it hang off a legacy parallel port? Nor how/where that software runs (inside a PC?).

Assuming something *like* a PC drives it through a "generic" interface (e.g., LPT, COM, etc.), why not write a *filter* that accepts a byte stream on stdin passing much/all of it through to stdout *except* the portion of the byte stream that represents the superfluous "paper advance" commands?

Then, plumb the output of the printer "driver" to the filter while the filter's output is connected to the printer?

(of course, this assumes you can get *at* each end of that printer driver)

Sorry I can't be of more help -- I don't write desktop software (and "I don't do Windows")

HTH,

--don

Reply to
Don Y

I heard Rishard Stallman telling a remarkably similar story.

Probably because if the fix that they won't sell as much label media.

put something else in place of the printer and take a few samples of the input it gets. search the exe for those strings and modify them or reverse engineer the input and produce a replacement driver.

Citizen's POS printers (and several immitators) use an open-source driver (I built it for ARM linux last week), but that's probably not the sort of label printer you mean.

--
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Reply to
Jasen Betts

What you need is a debugger like Olly Debug:

formatting link
Excellent for reverse engineering.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply 
indicates you are not using the right tools... 
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) 
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Reply to
Nico Coesel

he just needs a new printer.

tell casio to politely f*ck off.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

It appears that its COM1 I/O is as close to direct I/O as possible in windows. USB port emulators fail to work or even be recognized. Do not think that stin/stdout would work, ASS-u-ME-ing i knew how to write the code in BASIC, FORTRAN or ASM. And it is plain, after some experimenting, that bytes go both ways during printing and tape feeding.

Reply to
Robert Baer

  • Thing is, there are at least two label vendors, and AFAIK neither of them are connected with Canon. Seductive idea, as half of the tape is wasted.
Reply to
Robert Baer

!!WOW!! Perfect. Thanks muchly!

Reply to
Robert Baer

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