Confused with part of Flashtro tutorial

[MethodGit]

Don't worry, I'm looking at a relatively simple one for a relatively simple game.

http://flashtro.com/page.php?al=alias6734

The problem is at the beginning - I've pretty much replicated it from booting up XCopy to copying the tracks to a new disk, then entered AR3. Now, when I input "rt 0 1 10000" followed by "d 1000c" it only appears to disassemble $1000C and not the rest of the section like in the screenshot. Am I doing something wrong? Is this how it's supposed to happen?

Thanks.

[StingRay]

You need to press enter for the next line to appear. However, if you can't figure that out on your own I don't think cracking is an art you'll master, sorry.

[pmc]

It's a while since I used AR3 so I might be wrong but, after you disassemble a particular instruction like you did with "d 1000c", don't you just keep pressing enter to keep disassembling each of the following instructions in turn...?

[pmc]

Beaten by Sting!

...again.

[MethodGit]

Originally Posted by StingRay

You need to press enter for the next line to appear. However, if you can't figure that out on your own I don't think cracking is an art you'll master, sorry.

Well I'm sorry if the screenshot made it look like it just outputted the whole list automatically, mister!

[MethodGit]

Moaaarrrrr questions, m'lord. Bits from the Stack Up tutorial:

Reboot and let it load for a few seconds until disk activity halts, and enter the AR again,

When the Amiga starts blinking that light that's usually the sign of a guru, right?

and let execution continue. We can see it copies $1C01 longwords, so we want to break back into the AR after a couple of seconds wait, and save $1C01*4 bytes (28676) from $78000 to $7F004 to our workdisk.

When it says "let execution continue", does it mean go back to the Stack Up loading screen, wait a couple of seconds (while the guru light flashes), then go back to AR?

We set a breakpoint on $78116, and let the loader do its work... our breakpoint hits, and we save $7E00 bytes from $6E000 to our workdisk ($3F sectors, each of $200 length).

I set a breakpoint, and went back to the loading screen expecting AR to pop back up again, but instead the guru eventually reset the Amiga. Obviously I must not be doing something correctly. What could it be?

I know I'll understand and master it all someday, just you wait!

[BippyM]

How is this in support.apps?????????????????

Moved to coders heaven!

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by MethodGit

When it says "let execution continue", does it mean go back to the Stack Up loading screen, wait a couple of seconds (while the guru light flashes), then go back to AR?

I quickly checked the tutorial now [hello Mr. Kerr o/ ], the tutorial tells you to replace a jmp $78000 instruction with "bra here" instruction. Thus your question answers itself if you actually UNDERSTAND what's written in the tutorial.

Originally Posted by MethodGit

I set a breakpoint, and went back to the loading screen expecting AR to pop back up again, but instead the guru eventually reset the Amiga. Obviously I must not be doing something correctly. What could it be?

Can be anything, my guess is that you trashed the code.

Originally Posted by MethodGit

I know I'll understand and master it all someday, just you wait!

Not that I want to spoil your fun but I pretty much doubt it.

[BippyM]

It does look pretty simple, but I guess not being able to read the screen properly would be a disadvantage. I had to use a magnifier for those screenshots!

[MethodGit]

It also doesn't help that some of the tutorials have broken picture references hence no screenshots to go by at all..... but I digress!

Well, I tried again with the Stack Up tutorial, worked out which command I screwed up on, redid it and everything seems to look better.... except I still can't get a breakpoint to activate and take me back to AR.

So lemme explain..... I inserted the first BRA command correctly into the bootblock, got the new bootblock checksummed and written to the copied disk, and when I boot it, it'll tick the disk for a second and a half before stopping (or rather, "freezing" on an active light at track 35) on the white Kickstart screen. No guruing this time, and the results in AR I was getting from the commands looked comfortably similar to the screenshots. The only problem is that when it comes round to inserting the breakpoint in the correct location (which I obviously do), I get out of AR and wait for it to hit, only it doesn't. So I must've missed the boat somewhere along the line.

Again, I followed the instructions up to this point to the letter. I guess another thing I should note is this bit:

So, after replacing the JMP (A3) instruction we modified in the bootblock, we'll modify the JMP $78000 instruction to "BRA FOREVER" and let execution continue. We can see it copies $1C01 longwords, so we want to break back into the AR after a couple of seconds wait, and save $1C01*4 bytes (28676) from $78000 to $7F004 to our workdisk.

>>> sm 1:stackup_078000.bin,078000 07f004

I think I did this right - I went back to the white screen, waited a second or two, then went back to AR and did the sm command. But I can't really tell if it captured the data I require for the later part of the tutorial because I've gotten a bit too occupied by this breakpoint issue.

[WayneK]

An easy way to tell is... have a look at the memory range you're about to save. If it's empty (which it should be after a reset, and if nothing has been loaded) then you've failed and it's not worth saving empty ram to disk - if you see code/data there then you're probably doing it right!
So in this instance... load bootblock from your copy, modify jmp $78000 to bra forever, fix the checksum, write it back to disk as indicated in the tutorial, reset and let it load and then stop for a couple of seconds... press magic AR button and try M 78000 to look in memory, if you see anything other than 00 00 00, press ESC and save memory just like the tutorial says!

[MethodGit]

Hmmm. Now it won't boot at all. Here's the commands I did from the start, step-by-step.

(Make copy of Stack Up with X-Copy)
(press Page Up to go into AR)
rt 0 1 10000
d 1000c
(press Enter till you see 10066)
(Esc)
a 10066
BRA 10066
(Esc)
(place backup disk in df0
bootchk 10000
wt 0 1 10000
(Reset)
(Wait a few seconds)
(Page Up)
r
a (whatever PC number is, in my case 15be)
jmp (a3)
(Esc)
d (a498, not really my number, but you know)
(press Enter till you see the address with the JMP 78000 instruction)
(Esc)
a (a4d0, again not my actual number)
bra (number)
(Esc)
bootchk 10000
wt 0 1 10000
(Reset)

Something tells me that maybe writing to 10000 again isn't the answer..... but then you did say to write the new instructions (which included putting back the "jmp (a3)" instruction) to disk again. Hmmmm.

[MethodGit]

Okay, so I deduced that writing to 10000 again wasn't such a hot idea, and tried to see if I could bootchk and write both jmp instructions back to disk via their respective addresses (where I found them). But apparently you can't specify a value less than $8400. Hnnnngh.

So am I definitely needing to write these two new changes to disk first before messing about with breakpoints?

[8bitbubsy]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Not that I want to spoil your fun but I pretty much doubt it.

Cracking Amiga games is not rocket science, it just takes a lot of time, patience and experiencing.
You are pretty much disencouraging people when you say that kind of things. Please stop being arrogant to beginners, people need to start somewhere... You were a newbie at this at some point too!

[StingRay]

Stop talking about things you have no fucking clue about, thank you.

[8bitbubsy]

"Cracking Amiga games is not rocket science, it just takes a lot of time, patience and experiencing."

Point out what I was wrong about in the sentence above. I rest my case when you think about it three times. Sorry for exposing your amiga cracking skills pride.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

"Cracking Amiga games is not rocket science, it just takes a lot of time, patience and experiencing."

Yeah, because this was the only sentence you posted...

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

Point out what I was wrong about in the sentence above. Oh sorry, did I make your cracking skills pride too obvious? You almost asked for it, man.

The only thing you made obvious here is that you, as usual, have no clue what you're talking about. Congratulations.

[8bitbubsy]

Wrong, try again.

"Cracking Amiga games is not rocket science, it just takes a lot of time, patience and experiencing."

Point out what I was wrong about in the sentence above.

[Siggy999]

It's a run - on sentence?

[clenched]

MethodGit - I'm a little confused on one point.

We set a breakpoint on $78116, and let the loader do its work

later...

I get out of AR and wait for it to hit, only it doesn't.

Did you just x out of AR or run the code at $78000?