MicroAPLTM is the leading vendor of tools and services for
migrating embedded, desktop, and mainframe assembler software to new architectures.
Supplying advanced code-translation tools, customized solutions, and comprehensive code migration services, for over thirty years MicroAPL has been the vendor of choice for many of the world's leading companies faced with the problem of modernising legacy applications or keeping them running when the original hardware is no longer available.
Introduction to MicroAPL's code migration tools and services
Many organizations are stuck with legacy systems which are crucial to their operations but cannot easily be rewritten or ported. The code may be written in assembly language, or in a high-level language that is no longer supported. Sometimes such code relies heavily on specific characteristics of the obsolete system for which it was written, such as big-endian data layout or a particular CPU environment.
This introduction explains how MicroAPL can provide solutions to these problems.
Mainframe assembler modernization using AI
One of the most intractable problems in legacy code modernization is that of mainframe systems written wholly or partially in IBM's HLASM assembly language. The challenge is not just to migrate the code so that it runs on a modern Linux server or cloud platform, but in doing so to produce natural, readable and, maintainable code which is a solid basis for the future. MicroAPL offers an innovative two-stage solution to this problem, combining our unique RelogixTM code analyser and translation tool with modern AI-assisted refactoring to quality Java or C# source code. Find out more.
Relogix assembler translation
Our flagship RelogixTM assembler translation tool is unique in making it possible to migrate assembler code not only to run on a different architecture, but to be transformed into solid, maintainable high-level source code.
Using advanced code-analysis techniques developed over thirty years, Relogix is capable of uncovering the true high-level meaning of low-level assembler source code.
Unlike many other vendors of translation tools and services, we publish extensive code samples to demonstrate the quality of the translated code.
Mimic/68K instruction emulator
Mimic/68KTM is an industrial-strength instruction emulator which allows object code written for the 680x0 family to run unchanged on modern processors. It is especially useful for updating systems which are facing obsolescence because 680x0-family processors like the 68040 have reached End of Life (EOL) status.
Mimic/68K is highly customisable via a front end which you provide in C. For example memory-mapped I/O accesses in the original 68K code can be detected to allow simulation of I/O peripherals in software.
Versions of Mimic for other processor architectures are also available, please contact us for details.
Specialized software development
As well as code migration work, MicroAPL also undertakes specialized software development projects on behalf of our customers.
Recent examples have included:
- An implementation of the DMX512/RDM and DALI digital lighting protocols for a project to control very high brightness LEDs.
- Re-working of an industrial-control application to run on modern Windows systems
- Writing a Windows front-end to interface with Mimic/68K, to modernise a legacy semiconductor-manufacturing application.