This is generic Ghidra loader for various Atari 8-bit file formats. Currently supported are by file extensions are the following formats:
DOS files can be read as well as the boot sector file. They are read to the original address and the entry points are marked. Also directly reading a number of sectors from disk to a specific RAM address is supported.
- ATR (80 and 128 byte sector size)
- ATX
Binaries can be simple binary blobs of data, which can be read to a specific RAM address or are XEX files, which start with $FFFF and have chunks of data. Each chunk becomes a memory block, but chunks that are adjacent in memory are merged into one. If you provide a loading address != 0, the XEX file will be forced loaded to that address and the file structure will be ignored.
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XEX
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COM
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ATBOOT If you change the file extension to ATBOOT, the file will be treated like a boot sector and loaded as such (Byte 0: flags, Byte 1:# of sectors, Byte 2/3:load address, etc).
There is very limited support for CAR files, only type 1 (8kb), 2 (16kb) and 4 (32kb) are supported. No bank switching, etc. cartridges are supported.
- CAR
This loader is written and tested with Ghidra 10.3.3.
You can either build the loader via Eclipse directly for Ghidra or you launch Ghidra, select the "File" menu => "Install Extensions" and select the "+" at the top right. In the file selector navigate to the 'dist' directly of this repository (or download the ZIP file from Github manually, currently it is named "ghidra_10.3.3_PUBLIC_20230908_Atari8BitGhidra.zip"). It should then show up in the dialog below.
To use the loader just select "Import File" in Ghidra. You should see "Atari 8-Bit File Formats" when a file recognized in the import dialog. Select "Options…" to pick what you like to read.
Select the correct file! Only one should be selected with "BOOTFILE" being the default. If you like to read a DOS file, deselect "BOOTFILE". To read multiple sectors, just enter a start sector != 0 and a sector count. The load address is often part of the file format (BOOTFILE, DOS files), but can be forced by entering a "Load address" != 0. To enter a hex address, just type e.g. "0x700" into the dialog.