Case study

Karateka: a byte-matched DOS disassembly

Karateka reconstructs the 1986 DOS game's MZ executable as modular x86 assembly. Its build assembles the sources with NASM and compares the result byte for byte with a user-supplied KARATEKA.EXE.

Targets: Game
Category: Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
Sources reviewed: 2026-11-06

Stars: 1
Last commit: 2026-11-08
Language: Assembly

GitHub data as of 2026-11-10

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Requirements & limits

Prerequisites: Supply the original disk/KARATEKA.EXE for comparison.
Prerequisites: NASM is required for the build; the project notes also name ndisasm.
License: No licence file in the repository.

Cite

BibTeX

@misc{karateka-dos-disassembly-case,
  title = {{Karateka: a byte-matched DOS disassembly}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/gmegidish/karateka-disassembly}},
  url = {https://github.com/gmegidish/karateka-disassembly},
  urldate = {2026-11-06},
  note = {Awesome REA entry: \url{https://awesomerea.org/resources/karateka-dos-disassembly-case/}}
}

Plain text

Karateka: a byte-matched DOS disassembly. https://github.com/gmegidish/karateka-disassembly (accessed 2026-11-06). Awesome REA entry: https://awesomerea.org/resources/karateka-dos-disassembly-case/

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About this entry

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Primary sources

CLAUDE.md GitHub · gmegidish/karateka-disassembly · Revision 67826ae
Makefile GitHub · gmegidish/karateka-disassembly · Revision 67826ae