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One thing to remember is that most Apple ][ software barely had source code as we would understand it today, as most code was written in 6502 assembly language
by jhbadger 4y ago
One thing to remember is that most Apple ][ software barely had source code as we would understand it today, as most code was written in 6502 assembly language rather than in a high level language (compilers at the time took too much memory and generated poor code anyway). So even if you had access to the original source pretty much the only advantage over using a disassembly would be that there might be a handful of comments.
- kazinator 4y agoIn assembly you also have meaningful labels for branch destinations and routines in the program and global variables. Named constants for offsets into tables, bitmasks, and such. The original assembly language source could greatly ease reverse engineering, especially if it uses good naming. Some assemblers have macros; it's much better to be able to read the macro invocations than their assembled expansions.