New features
-
Assembler (new in 1.20)
-
If you click Select on the left-hand side of the window, where the
address, word and string values are, you'll get the same word-altering
window as before. But if you click to the right, where the mnemonic is
displayed, you'll get the new assembler window, in which the mnemonic can
be edited directly. This assembler only supports ARM2 instructions, so
not all instructions that Desktop Hacker can disassemble can be
successfully re-assembled. The assembler is part of the GoodTimes
module (not to be confused with the virus hoax of the same name), written
by Laurence Tratt and Andrew Clover.
-
Speed up (new in 1.08)
-
The slow-down window (now known as'Game speed') has been extended to
allow you to speed the game up as well as slow it down. This is much less
likely to work than slow-down, unless you have a fast processor that can
run the games faster, or the game is clever enough to adjust its speed
automatically.
-
Don't keep screen display (new in 1.07)
-
This is useful for users of computers with little free memory, but it
does disable the screenshot-saving feature, as well as corrupting the
screen display of most games. The option, found on the Choices window,
should be left off most of the time. Enable it only if you need
to hack a game that normally needs almost all of your memory. Game
position files saved out with this option enabled cannot be loaded into
versions of Desktop Hacker earlier than 1.07.
-
Squashed game files (new in 1.06)
-
Squashed game files are now supported, so you will often be able to fit a
saved game or two on a single floppy disc. Squashed games are only
available on machines which have Squash loaded (ie. RISC OS 3.), and
the squashed game files produced by default by Desktop Hacker 1.06 and
later will not load into Desktop Hacker 1.05 and earlier.
-
Memory reserving (new in 1.06)
-
Memory reserving. Some games (eg. Dune 2, Wolf 3D) deliberately claim all
the memory free in the computer. Then when Desktop Hacker tries to
interrupt, there's no free memory. If you get the 'Not enough memory...'
error even when you've left vast amounts of free memory, try going to the
Choices window, selecting the 'Reserve' option, and entering how much
memory you want to reserve. Increase this if you continue to get the
error.
-
Task forking (new in 1.06)
-
Games with WIMP front-ends in particular may trigger this feature: when a
task being hacked launches another task, a window will appear querying
whether you wish to continue hacking the old task, or follow the new one
started up by it. You should usually 'Follow' the new task, as that'll be
the game itself (that you want to hack), whereas the old task will be the
front-end. (Which you don't. Probably.)
-
HackPoints (new in 1.06)
-
A system of breakpoints has been introduced including SWI trapping (as
in the original Hacker). HackPoints are only accessible from the command
line - see the help for commands *SetHackPoint,
*ClearHackPoint and *ListHackPoints.
Release note