It is a free utility, and therefore neglecting the cost of diskette, no price is to be entailed with its distribution.
On another hand, it is copyrighted stuff, so you can't modify it.
If you really want to, you can consider it as a charityware, and send $10 to any charity organization you want. A nice thank you message is always appreciated, too ...
2)Purpose
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This program is a freeware programming aid and a game helper. It's main purpose is to compare two binary files and find quickly where are the differences between them, so you can for example find where are the lives in a game by comparing two differents save game files.
It is able to compare the files even if they don't have the same size. It can SEARCH each file for data, EDIT each file, copy some (small) part of one file into the other one.
It works under DOS and WINDOWS 3.X NT. I didn't test it with WIN95.
3)Keywords
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DOS WINDOWS UTIL COMPARE EDIT HACK HACKER GAME CHEET HELPER HEX HEXA HEXADECIMAL FREEWARE
4)WARNING
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This program allow you to modify any file you can open in write mode.
This implies you may screw up everything in your computer using this program, especially if you don't know what you are doing. I will not be responsible for whatever you do with this program, or whatever the program does. Use it on backed-up files, so you can easily restore your mess.
5)Some user's guide
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First please apologize my english mistakes. I am french and english is not my cup of tea.
I wrote this program in 1986. That's a long time ago, and you will find that it has a smell of good ol'time DOS look. Nevertheless, I can't do anything with my computer today without it. I never released it because I did not finished it, expecting somebody to come up with a nice better product that would do a lot of more nice stuff, but I still wait for this. So I fixed the few bugs it had and here it is !
Syntax
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To start COMPARE to edit one file, you simply type in :
COMPARE myfile <enter>
To start COMPARE to edit and compare two file, guess what :
COMPARE myfile1 myfile2 <enter>
If you don't remember that syntax, type in :
COMPARE <enter> (neat, huh?)
The Main Menu
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What you see next is the hexadecimal dump of your first file. If you requested a compare of two files, any byte that differ between the two files will appear highlighted.
Press the "RIGHT" key to see file 2
Press the "LEFT" key to see file 1
Press the "DOWN" key to see the next bytes of the file(s).
Press the "UP" key to see the previous bytes of the file(s).
Press the "END" key to go at the end of the files (synchro at the end of the current file)
Press the "HOME" key to get to the begining of both files.
If you want to find forward the next difference between the two files, press F1
If you want to find backward the previous difference between the two files, press F2
if you suspect that there is a desynchronisation between the two files (for example if a couple of byte seem to have been inserted), you can move only one file regarding the other one :
Press F3 to go forward into file 1
Press F4 to go backwrd into file 1
Press F5 to go forward into file 2
Press F6 to go backwrd into file 2
If that kind of synchronisation is too slow, you can set up each file to any address you want directly by pressing the F7 key to enter the "GOTO" sub-menu.
If you want to EDIT the area you are looking at, press F8 and go into the EDIT sub-menu. Obviously the file you will edit is the one you selected with the "RIGHT" and "LEFT" keys
If you want to SEARCH any of your two files, select the file you want to search with the LEFT and RIGHT keys, and press F9 and enter the SEARCH sub-menu; unless you want to repeat a previous search operation, done by pressing the F10 key.
Warning: the F10 repeats the search operation starting the first byte you see on your screen. If you repeat pressing the F10 key, it keeps finding the same data over and over and nothing moves. So you need to go forward with the "DOWN" key before you press the F10 key again. I know it's weird, but nobody is perfect, huh?
The EDIT mode
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Once you hit the F8 key, you enter the EDIT sub menu, and that's where you may screw up thing for good if you don't know what you are doing.
Your cursor goes into the data field and you can modify them directly using Hexadecimal notation. Use the cursor keys to move from a byte to another.
If you want to enter your modifications in ASCII mode, hit the TAB key, and your cursor goes in the ASCII part of the display. Enter your modifications in ASCII then.
In EDIT mode, the F5 key allow you to copy the other file (assuming you set the other file properly). This is kind of a useful feature though.
Once you finished your changes, you may :
hit ESC to cancel them and not change the file (changed your mind huh?)
hit F9 to confirm the changes.
If the files are in write protect, the changes won't be made (but you oddingly won't be warned)
The GOTO mode
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The program will first ask you if you want to position the 1st file, the 2nd file, or Both files. It will ask you this question only if you edit two files at a time of course.
After you answer, you will be prompted for the location to reach. You may enter any number in decimal or hexadecimal like this :
12345 <enter> (decimal)
0x3039 <enter> (hexadecimal)
ESCape key (changed your mind)
The SEARCH mode
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You may make 3 different kind of searching :
- search in Hexademimal mode
- search in strict Ascii mode (upper/lower case matters)
- search in non Case sensitive ascii mode (upper/lower case doen't matter)
If you choose hexadecimal, you will have to enter an hexadecimal string like this :
suppose you want find the bytes "12 34 56 AB CD"
you will enter : 123456ABCD<enter>
If you choose Ascii or "no Case", you just enter the string you are looking for.
You are limited to a search of 30 bytes.
6) How do I use this to cheet on a game ?
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Briefly, here is one method. It doen't work for all games, but it works pretty often.
1) Start your game. Let's say you have 5 lives.
2) Save it. You get a saved game file name MYGAME1.SAV (rename it if needed)
3) Reload this MYGAME1 file and lose one life (you have only 4 now).
4) Save the game promptly under the name MYGAME2.SAV.
5) Exit your game (not needed if you work with Windows NT)
6) Start COMPARE MYGAME1.SAV MYGAME2.SAV
7) Press F1 until you find a "4" of file2 which has the "5" value in file 1
8) Use the edit mode to change the value you found from "4" to "6" in file2. If you found several values, you will have to make several tests
9) Reload your game and the saved game2 MYGAME2
10) If you get 6 lives, you are through ! if not, restore MYGAME2.SAV and goto step 5 to find a better candidate for the life counter.
11) Don't forget to save the Galaxy and shut the light before you leave.
I hope you'll enjoy this tool as much as I do. Suggestions and comments are welcome, but I don't really intend to modify this thing soon.
