Hack-O-Matic ][ - A better, faster way to hack

[+Random Terrain]

Thanks for posting that info misterx.

[raindog]

I dunno if the etiquette in the Windows BASIC scene allows me to suggest this, but.... if you release your source chances are someone reading this thread will eventually be able to add all that "tracing back to find color registers" stuff for you

 

I think I said this already on the other board, btw, but.... nice job. I probably shouldn't admit this, but one of my favorite things is to have one of my programs made obsolete by something that's genuinely more useful to more people.

[Rob Mitchell]

I'm still working on my hack of Sprintmaster DC .. I've converted the cars to the Indy500 cars! The advantage is that they are smaller than the Sprintmaster cars and thus easier to maneuver through the tracks.

 

I'm gonna try to do some tinkering with the title page ..

 

The final result will make the 2600 Sprintmaster code resemble Atari arcade Indy800 !!

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[misterx]

raindog: I don't know about any BASIC "scene" but i really don't care if someone modifies my source and redistributes the program... As long as my name is still on it as the original programmer I think i will add the color finder, i will just need to study the inner workings of the 2600 a little more. If someone already has a program that finds the data it would be very useful if they'd give me the source.... I'm not begging, just if someone happens to have a program for that lying around somewhere. Any language is ok! (Well... Except ASM... ASM on the PCs gets too cryptic.)

[Greg Zumwalt]

The schematics, docs, etc. and the program AHD are all available in the archive.

AHD is the current project that works on colour changes.

[Greg Zumwalt]

Also, as far as CRC data goes, do not rely upon the Good Tools for the 2600. It has several errors and is extremely out of date.

 

In the archive, under Tools, look for List Creator and MyGood2600.

 

If it is just a quick referace you'd like of the current CRC's:

look at the contents of CRC2Name.bat

[misterx]

I decided to put together a beta version... It might still have some errors in it so any buy reports will be welcomed!

 

Using Copy/Paste:

 

1. Select the area by clicking and dragging your mouse over the offsets on the left

2. Right click on the canvas and select Copy, select Edit/Copy from the menu or hit CTRL+C.

3. Select the destination area the same way as in copying. The copied region will be pasted starting from the start of the selection.

2. Right click on the canvas and select Paste, select Edit/Paste from the menu or hit CTRL+V.

 

Copy does not copy to the windows clipboard, or between different instances of HOM2. Yet. And i'm working on copying it to the clipboard as a normal bitmap. Rapid-Q doesn't natively do that so i have to either 1. Dig deep into the WIN32 API (urrrrgh) or 2. Use a library for it. If i can find one.

 

Edit/Flip flips the whole file around. The Misc menu is a sort of debug menu... The "Dock" resizes the window to a handy size

 

Enjoy!!

 

Download!

[Greg Zumwalt]

Nice, very nice indeed!

 

WinXP, no "bugs" yet.

Save As... love it, so simple, yet lacking in the original

Copy/Paste working well.

Flip supprised me.

I expexted a graphic flip, not code reversal.

None the less, it works!

 

The BIN/HEX display sort of gets crunched together however.

You may want to put a dividing line in there.

 

Another suggestion, allow setting the Bin and Hex value.

e.g. I make a graphic, and someone tells me, hey try this improvement, change address such and such from &HE6 to &HD4

I could then scroll down, and enter the hex value, as apposed to convering the values to bin and then filling in the boxes...

or, if you are like me, and have gads of notebook papper with 1's and 0's... none lined up too well... I can just enter the binary values and see if the graphics look correct

 

Can't wait for the undo, import and other features!

This has to be one of the biggest updates to the 2600 PC merger since the Atari emulator itself

 

BTW Nice to see some error trapping.

I was curious what might happen if I loaded a 1Gb file

Also, I am able to load/save files accross a LAN connection.

 

I have found a minor graphics ghost...

It occures when scrolling to the bottom of the file.

The BIN/HEX columns remain on the display. pic 1

Yet, minimizing/restoring the screen, clears the ghosting.

Or, bringing up another program and then moving HOM back to the top will correct the display.

Something in the refresh portion of the values columns???

[+Random Terrain]

Adding to what has been mentioned, everything is working the same on my Windows 98 computer, copy and paste works. If you ever get to add an undo feature, that would be nice.

 

Flip works, but if you leave it flipped and save it, it saves the program that way, so it doesn't work when you go to run it with an emulator. You have to "unflip" it first, then save it, then it works. Any way for for the program to save the flipped code in the correct form without unflipping it? If not, that's OK as long as people know that they should "unflip" the code before saving.

 

This program is getting better all of the time. Thanks misterx.

[Gregory DG]

I used HOM ][ to hack Moon Patrol Plus. Not bad, but it's hard to wrap your brain around creating graphics upside-down and backwards (like for the title screen)...

[+Random Terrain]

I used HOM ][ to hack Moon Patrol Plus. Not bad, but it's hard to wrap your brain around creating graphics upside-down and backwards (like for the title screen)...

 

You can now Flip the code so you don't have to do that anymore, but be sure to flip it back before you save it.

[Gregory DG]

You can now Flip the code so you don't have to do that anymore, but be sure to flip it back before you save it.

 

Thanks, I got the newer version. Had to figure out the "flip back before save" on my own.

[Dan Iacovelli]

The schematics, docs, etc. and the program AHD are all available in the archive.

AHD is the current project that works on colour changes.

 

AHD doesn't have color change in it but Laz is working in it with version 2.

 

about HOM2 new version: looks good haven't tried anything yet with it but I will as soon as I get a chance.

 

Dan Iacovelli

[misterx]

I'll repair the hex display ghost when i get home.... And about the "flip back before save", notice the little checkmark next to Flip when you click it? I will add a warning when saving if the file hasn't been unflipped. And there will be an option to edit the hex values directly. (Click the hex display and start typing ) The emulator launcher will also be in the next version... Today is friday and i should have about the whole weekend for coding (edit) Forgot to say something about the bin and hex display being crunched together... It must be because of the font, it displays correctly on my system. I should probably start using a bitmap font or something. Also, i will add an option to copy hex or binary to the Windows clipboard.

[+Random Terrain]

Thanks again misterx.

[misterx]

The non-beta version of HOM2 1.2 is out! Including

 

- Built in hex/bin editor

- Emulator launcher

- Saving of properties (screen position, size, emulator path)

- Readme/Instructions! (i hate writing docs )

 

And it's still one neat EXE, everything's included.

 

My site

Direct download ( Source )

[Greg Zumwalt]

Readme typos

language are you don't

and

 

some recognieable

recognizable

 

Use you artistic talent

your

 

Selecting the emulator path was a bit more complicated then it should have been

 

Using z26.exe, I double clicked the exe and the path was added. However, it still contained %path% at the end of the line, which didn't work:

C:DownloadsNew for Snailz26.exe %PATH%

 

Deleting %path% didn't work.

 

I tried a manual edit to:

%C:DownloadsNew for Snailz26.exe%

z26.exe %PATH%C:DownloadsNew for Snail

%C:DownloadsNew for Snailz26.exe%

but all failed as well.

After applying some quotatin marks, I was able to get it to launch with:

"C:DownloadsNew for Snailz26.exe" %PATH%

but it still didn't launch the game.

 

It wasn't until I added the rom name as well, that it got a proper launch:

"C:DownloadsNew for Snailz26.exe" %PATH% test.bin

 

Thus, quotes need to be added to handle LFN paths.

And, HOM2 should pass the saved location of the edited rom to the command code when the emulator is launched.

 

Nice error trapping in the BIN & HEX.

Values outside of 0&1 or 0-F are not allowed

 

The former ghosting of the display seems corrected.

 

The BIN/HEX crunching of values seems to be a result of using the LARGE fonts feature.

Screen resizing didn't effect it, but changing the font size to normal did... go figure.

 

Perhaps an option to select font of choice would help???

 

The version should be updated, 1.3?

 

Overall, very minor bugs and a whole lot of nice new features

 

And it is so tiny...

HOM2, z26 and some BIN's could all fit onto a floppy...

perfect to take to class and waste time on the library computer

 

That just leaves the biggies to add:

Undo, 2 column...

Colour (good luck on that one)...

but of course, lets not put the horse befor the cart

 

Excellent job, and I know it will be greatly appreciated by most!

Most?

Yep, most. When HOM was released, a few people went, ACK!

Now that HOM2 is out, I suspect those same people won't sleep well knowing such a powerfull tool is now available

The price of fame

 

Well, personally, I appreciate the neatness of the coding, its size, and that a programmer is willing to take advice/suggestions just as much as what the program can do.

 

So, thank you on behalf of all those aspects

[misterx]

Done! I corrected every bug and spelling error you mentioned (except the "crunching of bin/hex" bug which will be fixed when i start usign a bitmap font) It's in the same URL. (edit) I fixed the long filenames error when using the launch emulator thing but i have to confess that i cheated I just made the browse button include the quotes in the filename (and made it add quotes to the ROM path too) So if you type it in manually, remember to include quotes if it's a long filename!

[+Random Terrain]

Misterx, that's much better. I like having instructions for new users. If you ever figure out how to make it scroll with a Wheel Mouse, such as ones from Microsoft, that would be very helpful since I and many others use the Wheel all of the time.

[misterx]

Yeah, i want to really have that too but so far i've found no way to implement that in Rapid-Q When you're used to a wheel mouse being without it/using a program that doesn't support it feels odd.

[Greg Zumwalt]

Looking real good.

 

However, the launching of the rom could still use a little work.

 

Granted, the emulator now launches properly, but one still has to manually enter the rom and its path to run it.

 

I think that most would appreciate it, if when you hit launch, it just ran. That is to say, once you have set the path to the emulator, HOM2 should pass the current rom to the emulator.

 

Even if HOM2 has to save the rom as temp.bin in c:

then launch the emulator, using the locations selected,

test it, and then delete the temp.bin upon returning to HOM2.

 

Also, if the rom has been altered, and not saved prior to exiting, HOM2 should request wether or not to save prior to exiting.

That way, even if one tested it with the emulator, but forgot to save it, they wouldn't have wasted all their work.

 

The bitmapped fonts may still prove more difficult then just allowing the user to choose a font and size.

BMP's will take up more space and resources, not to mention, be affected by resolution setting.

I don't know the language you're using or the degree of your skills, but just my 2 cents.

[Greg Zumwalt]

I have had a request for a size limit override.

2 reasons present are:

 

1. Many people were using HOM to hack roms from other systems. Ones that are too large for HOM2.

 

2. Because some Atari 2600 projects in development can now do 512Kb.

 

I don't know what the current limit is, just that it isn't 1 Gb

What I'd suggest is a check to see of the bin to be edited is a multiple of 2048 *1,2,4,8 or 16

If it isn't, or it is larger, pop up a notice/request box that the rom may not be an Atari 2600 binary, would you like to load it anyways.... yadda yadda yadda.

 

Perhaps put a 1Mb limit?

[Brad2600]

misterx...what exactly does the option "repaint" stand for? As in to do with colors?

 

I would like it if I could figure out what the different values stand for. This would make it totally easier to hack.

 

But I like the newest version. It's definitely an improvement.

[misterx]

Right.... The emulator laucher is supposed to savve and launch the current ROM. It works perfectly on my system, with long filenames and without. Maybe i'll just make it save the file to c:temp.bin or something... It's actually better because if you forget to Save As before you launch - WHAM your original ROM is gone. And about the size limit and warnings, i now increased it into 1 MB. Before it was 64kb because i thought that an Atari 2600 game would never pass something that huge. I was wrong. The warnings are already in, have you looked at the statusbar in the bottom? I used to have a small warning dialog but thought that some people would find it annoying so i removed. It's back in now. CRC checks are still giving a headache... What's the polynomial crc32.exe uses? Anyways, i'll post the next version in a min. Or two.

[+Random Terrain]

misterx...what exactly does the option "repaint" stand for?

 

It says in the new readme thingy under Help:

 

The editing area isn't sometimes properly resized when you maximize the program. Select Misc/Repaint if the area is too small.

 

Repaint - Repaints the screen. In case something messes up.