Hex -> Bin

[Jedd]

I finally got a disassembler working on my Mac and decided I wanted to hack Pitfall by changing some sprites and stuff. The thing that sucks is that when I disassemble it, all the sprites are in hex. Does anyone know of a site or some software that can convert a bunch of .byte's into binary? Thanks!

 

-J

[Nukey Shay]

You can force the disassembler to do this for you. What you need to do is create a .cfg file that is used in the process. Try this...

 

ORG F000

CODE F000 F3EE

GFX F3EF F3FE

CODE F3FF FAFC

GFX FAFD FCA8

CODE FCA9 FCD6

GFX FCD7 FEAC

CODE FEAD FEC1

GFX FEC2 FFFF

 

 

Copy/paste that into notepad, and name it pitfall.cfg

Now do this when you disassemble...

 

distella -pafscpitfall.cfg pitfall.bin > pitfall.asm

 

The values will still be shown in Hex, but each one will be on a seperate line, with the bitpattern commented off to the side

 

And Hex->bitpattern isn't really hard to understand. There are only 16 different variations of the arrangement of the bits for each of the 2 hex digits...

 

---- = 0

---x = 1

--x- = 2

--xx = 3

-x-- = 4

-x-x = 5

-xx- = 6

-xxx = 7

x--- = 8

x--x = 9

x-x- = A

x-xx = B

xx-- = C

xx-x = D

xxx- = E

xxxx = F

 

So a value like $86 would translate to the bitpattern x--- for the 8 and -xx- for the 6

...i.e. x----xx-

[Nukey Shay]

BTW Thomas has a fully commented reverse-engineered disassembly posted at The Dig. All the game graphics are represented in Binary values (1's and 0's).

[Jedd]

Worked like a charm. Thank you!

 

-J

[ATARI TROLL]

I am having the same trouble but can't seem to reassemble a bin? Finally have alll the tools but its taking a while to get used to this! What tools are you using jed (DASM?).

 

Cheers

[Nukey Shay]

What message are you getting when you try to compile?

[CPUWIZ]

What message are you getting when you try to compile?

 

Not compile, assemble.

 

 

EDIT: That's it, I am going home.

[Nukey Shay]

Po-ta-to...pot-a-to

[Jedd]

I'm running on Mac OSX, and to assemble code I use Dasm and macro.h and vcs.h. It took me about a week to get the darn thing working, so contact me if you have trouble and I'll help you out. As for disassembling code, I use the Mac version of Distella and the file above^ from nukey. Some trickery was necessary to get that up and running, too. To emulate I use Stella 1.2. Is that what you were asking?

 

-J

 

Btw I managed to change some of the sprites in Pitfall. So far, the scorpion is the robot from Berzerk, the logs are PacMan, and the gators are mutated ducks (they don't fit in very well, but they look funny ). If you guys have ideas for any of the other sprites, let me know, because I'm running out of ideas.

 

K I'm done with this hack and I want to try and make my own game now. Here's a screenshot of what I produced in my long hard hour of hacking Pitfall: