New Sonic 1 Disassembly

This might interest some people.

For years, the Sonic 1 disassembly on Sonic Retro's GitHub (and predecessors like SVN and Hg) have been seen as somewhat controversial and divisive by some.

From what was a very easy to work with disassembly by Hivebrain in 2005, turned into something else which was not the best to work with, in the opinion of some.

Some people didn't like the excessive splitting of files, others had issues with the structure which had been radically changed.

Whilst the Sonic 2 GitHub disassembly also had changes throughout the years, they were never seen as too controversial to the changes made with Sonic 1's.

Many people still use the older 2005 disassemblies, and many guides still target them too, although some of course refer to GitHub too. Either way, it's 2021, and the disassemblies were never commonly used as one.

Over the years, there have always been discussions about new disassemblies, but nothing ever went mainstream. Even I had an idea to try and make the disassemblies easier to work with, with a similar structure and layout for all of them, which never came to fruition. It would have made things easier to work with, had things just been the same.

And there were others who had plans too over the years, including those who were involved with SSRG over the years, but again, nothing much came out of them for the most part. Not in terms of a Sonic 1 or 2 disassembly in full use today. And that's not to say they still can't be done. But the fact is, it has taken forever for something major to come out. A lot of issues, should have been addressed many years ago, but sadly were not.

It has been outright difficult for people to come together and agree on a standard, because everyone has their own way of doing things.

Well, it looks like something is being done, more than 11 years later. And it's certainly worth watching.


For the last few months, Hivebrain, with a few contributors, have forked and reworked the Retro disassembly into a new version which is worth taking a look at.

Many files have been unsplit, which addresses a major complaint, and there are other fixes and improvements made too.

Obviously the disassembly is being worked on still, but it does seem rather promising, the question will be of course will it get people to switch to this new disassembly, or will people remain on the older ones?

After all, the 2005 Sonic 1 and 2007 Sonic 2 disassemblies still get used.

And somehow, there are people still using non-disassembly tools like ESEII. But that's a discussion for another time.

If you have any comments regarding improving this disassembly, you are best to ask them on GitHub.

 

with all of your hard work and tireless campaigning over the years, I'm not surprised you'd jump on the opportunity to post about some other people's efforts while continuing your campaign! I admire you as a community pillar, and I'm glad to see you explain to people who are unaware of the decades long situation with disassemblies accurately. I sm sure nobody else could have said it the best. While I try putting my money where my mouth is, there's a rare person who can put such effort towards improving the situation as you. Thank you for your invaluable service, I am sure nobody would have been able to find out about this project otherwise.

All sarcasm aside, I doubt this will be an uncontroversial version, but its clear its purpose isn't to be, rather a bigger push towards improving the disassembly itself, risking at breaking any sense of compatibility or established customs. that's how innovation usually goes, but everyone has a chance to affect change. it's worth doing your own part rather than sitting there running your mouth.

 

Thank you for your sarcasm. Nothing stopped you from posting this by the way, the reason I made it is because some people started to talk about it, but not many were aware about it.

I'm not here to take credit, only to advertise the link to it. After all you made some contributions yourself to it which are good.

As for it being uncontroversial or not, only the end user can decide on that. It looks like a huge improvement from the old GitHub disassembly however.

But just remember, people who tried to effect change in the past, just got ignored or shut out. I'm not trying to deride anyone past or present here, but explaining a few things, with the disassemblies.

Also I have pointed out to people, anyone who has suggestions or questions, should go to the GitHub page. I appreciate there is someone finally fixing the thing regardless of the wait.

Hopefully this does the job. I appreciate there is finally something being done about the disassemblies, after so many years of discussion raised regarding them.