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Can we convert HEX code to C code? Is there any tools avaliable?
with thanks, Karthik
But to continue an argument from the 8052 forum: You do not disassemble to just get a perfect copy, but to get the base to stand on when improving the product.
So you get a competitor with a more complete product (making him say that it isn't a copy, or that your product is old and tired) but where the base functionality is deduced from the disassembly of your product.
I don't think it is done too often on full products (unless the product is small) but more often for stealing specific functions - such as protocol responses, compatibility workarounds, ... that are very hard to deduce with just external black-box testing. I do recommend people to think about the copy-protection bits of the processors. It makes it harder both to do perfect duplicates and to disassemble critical code.
I recall a classic
"I need to disassemble because chip xxx is not available here"
Now I challenge anybody, to find any way that could be anything but stealing code.
Erik
The original company should have the original - commented and documented - code to start with when porting to the chip that is no longer available.
But if it isn't that the chip is no longer available, but instead not available at all, then that is a big oops.