[protoman3000]

Incredible. Emulating AppleSilocon before they even announced it.

Does anybody know where one can learn about how these people approach and learn about the inner workings of what is essentially a black box from the outside?

[saagarjha]

Load the file into a decompiler, run it in QEMU with GDB attached, compare. Also have a general idea of how XNU boots.

[anitil]

I remember a comment (maybe from HN) that said "Everything's open source when you can read assembly".

[saagarjha]

XNU happens to be mostly open-source.

[protoman3000]

> Also have a general idea of how XNU boots.

I guess Jonathan Levin’s Books should then be mentioned here.

However, that then leads to the question how Levin reversed this black box.

[saagarjha]

You don't need his books, but they might be helpful if you're trying to get up to speed quickly.