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Editing Binaries: Easier Than It Sounds

posted by janrinok on Monday March 24 2014, @08:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-for-the-faint-hearted dept.

Anonymous Coward writes:

"Dan Luu, in his blog, suggests that editing binaries is something that we should consider from time to time. From that blog:

Editing binaries is a trick that comes in handy a few times a year. You don't often need to, but when you do, there's no alternative. When I mention patching binaries, I get one of two reactions: complete shock or no reaction at all. As far as I can tell, this is because most people have one of these two models of the world:

  • There exists source code. Compilers do something to source code to make it runnable. If you change the source code, different things happen.
  • There exists a processor. The processor takes some bits and decodes them to make things happen. If you change the bits, different things happen.

If you have the first view, breaking out a hex editor to modify a program is the action of a deranged lunatic. If you have the second view, editing binaries is the most natural thing in the world. Why wouldn't you just edit the binary?"

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Koen on Tuesday March 25 2014, @12:30AM

    by Koen (427) on Tuesday March 25 2014, @12:30AM (#20653)

    This reminds me of the days of the Motorola MEK-6802-D5 [old-computers.com] and the Multitech Microprofessor μP-1/MPF-1 [wikipedia.org]: 16 hexadecimal keys and a couple of keys to start/stop programs, place breakpoints, single-step and reset.

    I learned machine code on the MEK-6802. It was mounted on a wooden board and had a sheet of plexi on top with a cut-out for the keys. During school holidays, I would draw flow-charts and write the Mnemonics (i.e. assembly language without an assembler) in the day time and then hand-assemble it to Hex using opcode-tables during the night - that's where my insomnia I still suffer from at this very moment started (well, that and hormones I guess, I was 12 to 15 years old).

    After that, I used a MicroProfessor: it had a Z80 processor and it came in a case that looked like a plastic book [dyndns.org]. Closed it looked like any ordinary book, I'll never forget the surprized look of my friends when I took it of the book shelve and opened it. The MPF-1-Plus [oldcomputers.net] even had a QWERTY keyboard and an Assembler - what a luxury!

    The Multitech company still exists, they changed their name to Acer [wikipedia.org].

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