The ability to run programs on different computers is one step closer following a successful international binary translation research project.
The project involving University of Queensland researchers has developed an automatic translator program known as UQBT (University of Queensland Binary Translator). University of Virginia researchers have also collaborated.
The new tool will benefit computer users, giving them freedom to run programs they want on different computer platforms. It will also help computer developers, with less source code required, and lower costs.
"It's a resourceable and retargetable tool, supporting multiple source and target machines more cheaply," UQ researcher Dr Cristina Cifuentes said. "The work aims to translate programs across different platforms.
"This tool could remove a major barrier to diversity in computer hardware, that different computer systems are unable to talk to each other. As well as changing the targets, the project aims to analyse binaries not just to any machine, but also from any machine, also at low cost."
Binary translators take binary programs running on one operating system and translate them to run on target machines at about the same speeds. They enable existing software to run on newly released machines, making such machines more appealing to potential customers. Translators also allow older binaries to run on today's computers.
"We're developing general, platform-independent techniques for binary translation," said Dr Cifuentes, who leads the binary team in UQ's Centre for Software Maintenance in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department. The team, thought to be the only one of its kind in the world hosted at a university, is not only writing binary translators, but improving the understanding of binary manipulation tools for reverse engineering binary codes.
Dr Cifuentes said these techniques were valuable to any software developer who wanted to port software to a new machine. "These new tools will make software available quickly on new machines, without requiring source code or re-programming," she said.
The major limitation of tools working on binary codes was their dependence on many details of the underlying platform.
"UQBT strives to adapt easily to changes in both source and target machines," she said. The system is being used on the multiplatform operating system Solaris, and releases for Linux and Windows NT are planned.
Dr Cifuentes leads the research project, assisted by senior research assistant Mike Van Emmerik. Team members include UQ research assistants and students Doug Simon, Trent Waddington, David Ung, Ian Walters, Share Sendall (now at EPL Switzerland) and overseas collaborator Dr Norman Ramsey of the University of Virginia.
The research has received a $158,000 Australian Research Council grant and $235,000 Sun Microsystems cash and in-kind support, plus internships and a sabbatical visit by Dr Cifuentes and research students at Sun Microsystems at Palo Alto in the United States. Sun is the world's largest manufacturer of Unix computer workstations and the developer of the Java programming language.
More information on the project is available on the UQBT homepage at: http://www.csee.uq.edu.au/csm/uqbt.html
Media: Further information Dr Cifuentes telephone +1 650 336 2743 email: cristina@csee.uq.edu.au , Mr Van Emmerik, telephone 07 3365 3476 email: emmerik@csee.uq.edu.au
