How do I make a hack?

[Codysgames]

I need to know how to make an Atari 2600 hack?

[Pac Munchkin]

As one beginner to another I'll tell you how I made Pac Munchkin (My first real hack)

First I found something called Showgfx Editgfx these are two programs that work together.

 

I copied Pac Man from my ROMs to a folder on my C: drive I used for 2600GFX.

Important these work in DOS I had to rename Pac man.bin to one word 8 characters or less, I may have chosen test1 I think. so I renamed it test1.bin

 

After that I clicked on my DOS shell typed CD.. CD.. to get me out of the windows directory into C: after that I typed CD 2600GFX then I typed DIR to list the directory.

 

And Showgfx test1.bin 0 4096 > test1.txt

 

After this I closed the DOS or popped it down and opened note pad loaded test1.txt and I looked for all the graphics, these are all upside down in this but you can see them when you look if you look for patterns that look like the ghost or pac man. now you can change these but deleting the capital Xs or adding capitol Xs. if you make the sprit too big you will see it when you play the game and know you need to cut down. I'll give you a short cut Pac Man can only be 6 pixels high because the maze is that high so it was programmed that way, you can't change that just doing graphics hacking.

 

After you find all the characters and the animations and made all your changes go back to DOS and type Editgfx test1.txt > test1.bin

 

Your are now ready to copy your test BIN back into the ROM folder of your emulator and try it out, you wont get things exactly on your first try but you will know where you want to go from there each time.

 

That was how I did pacman to pac munchkin.

 

For something like color you need to find a hack that was changed and the original and get a file compare I got on free at download.com this will find the differences between the two and where to change to be more like the hack.

 

For color bineries I looked those up on the net but I wrote them down on my back in black thread.

 

If you don't know binary that is ok for now you can just do graphics hacks, one more thing always remember what you changed if you accidentally changed something you shouldn't had you can change it back.

 

Here is a short lesson on binary

 

the computer counts in 2's not 10's like people do each is on or off

there are 8 bits is these they are called 8 bit processors

starting from the right to left these go from low to high.

1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256

 

so to start

0 is zero

1 is one

10 is two

11 is three

100 is four

these would like like this in full 8 bit

 

00000000

00000001

00000010

00000011

00000100

the first bit can be 1 or 0

the second is 2

the third is 4

the fourth is 8

the fifth is 16

the sixth is 32

this continues to the eighth bit at 256

see how each bit doubles in value?

so to make the number 463 would look like this in binary.

11101111

 

256+128+64+8+4=2+1=463

That is how the computer sees 463

 

in the txt file it would look like spaces and Xs.

 

Hack-O_matic is fast so is Bit hacker no conversion to work with just hack he ROM it self.

Make a copy hack the copy always not the original, unless you don't want the original anymore, but if you mess up it is nice to have the original to go back to starting over again.

 

Pac Man is a good first hack very easy to hack graphics, Alien is much more advanced, I hacked Alien on my third hack and was near pulling my hair out with it! LOL

 

Do even try Lock n' Chase when I tried and gave up that is one hard hack for graphics!

 

Ok that is the easy stuff.

 

Oh to show you graphics in the game Pac man

 

this is a demo these numbers are wrong

 

000000000 ----------

000000001 --xxxx--

000000002 -xxxxx-

000000003 xxxxxx

000000004 xxxxxx

000000005 -xx-xx-

000000006 --xxx--

 

Pac Man closed mouth up side down.

 

8 bits across 6 bits down

 

Good Luck

Wade

[Codysgames]

Thanks a whole lot,I owe ya one.

[Pac Munchkin]

Thanks a whole lot,I owe ya one.

 

 

You're very welcomed, looking forwards to seeing your first hack.

 

Mine are

 

Pac Munchkin (Pac man hack), ET's Candy Bars (Pac Man hack), Hot Munchkin (Alien Hack), Hot Pac'em (Alien Hack Hack of Pacmanplus's Alien Pac Man), and Tank Patrol (Tanks But No Tanks Hack Hack of TanksDX)

 

I just switched Hot Munchkin and Hot Pac'em to black back ground.

 

Wade

[SalemFrost7800]

you can find the tool needed here Here

[Shawn]

I need to know how to make an Atari 2600 hack?

 

 

Take an axe and strike the ATARI game of your choice with the sharp side of the axe to the face of the ATARI cartridge. Should work quite well to create a hack.

Edited June 27, 2006 by Shawn Sr.

[Codysgames]

I need to know how to make an Atari 2600 hack?

 

 

Take an axe and strike the ATARI game of your choice with the sharp side of the axe to the face of the ATARI cartridge. Should work quite well to create a hack.

 

Heh Heh Heh Heh Very Funny