So you want to hack on a Mac... v1.0 ------------------------------------ There is going to be a few things that are going to cause a problem. Firstly, most of the tools that are used for rom hacking were written for MS-Dos and Windows. So unless you're running a Windows emulator on your Mac, you're going to need a few tools. Whatever you can't get off Romhacking.net, you can use google to find. Dos-Box Hexpose Dos Edit Tile Molester Nesticle X.XX Snes Tool Japanese Language Input Bar Hex Calculator Dos-Box ------- This program allows MS-Dos emulation on your Mac. It's pretty easy to use but for complete newbs, I will outline the usage at the end of the file. Hexpose ------- This program was created by snobro and it's awesome. I prefer this over thingy or any other program out there. I find it the easiest to use, but you don't have to. If you don't know what a hex editor is, then go read another FAQ. Dos Edit -------- Now this is very important. In Windows you can just make your table files in notepad or use some table program, but since you're using a Mac that won't work. Neither will making a table in textedit or any of those other programs that have windows conversion in them. So you need this, and old school text editing program. Just think of notepad for dos but with a better colour scheme. Any time you want to edit your table, you have to do it with this program. If you have to edit you table you, you must use Dos Edit! As soon as you save it with text edit, the table file will become corrupted with all the extra Mac formatting codes, so when you load it in your hex editor it will go all crazy. Being a dos program it has no support for Japanese characters, so your best bet is to just use Romanji in your table. Tile Molester ------------- Another awesome program written by snobro, but for graphics this time. Natively written in java, it will work on Macs without any extra effort. Just click the tm.jr file and it will load up and you can have some fun. You can do some pretty cool stuff with this editor so make sure you read the FAQ/readme that comes with it. Nesticle -------- The only reason I still use this is sometimes it makes it a lot easier to find out the values of certain things by loading up nesticle and using the pattern table. An example would be the Password screen in Captain Tsubasa uses a completely different table then the rest of the game. So I used nesticle to find out that A = #27 and a space was #60 so I was able to hack the password screen to perfection... Just remember to turn off the sound emulation before you load your game or else you'll have some nasty sound feedback. It's also quite useful for doing title screen stuff. Well I think so at least... Snes Tool --------- Use this tool for applying and creating patches and creating/deleting headers. 'Nuff said... Japanese Language Input ----------------------- This is probably one of the best things on a Mac. The actual input of Japanese characters. I find this much easier on a Mac then PC, and it's much easier to setup. Step 01. Go to your system preferences and click International Step 02. Now drag the Japanese Language up under English in the language tab. Step 03. Go to the input menu and find Japanese Kana Palette (if you actually want to type in Japanese, use the Kotoeri method, but I will not go into detail about that). Step 04. On the bottom of the International box you should see the 'show input menu in menu bar' checkbox. Make sure this it's checked. Step 05. A little flag should appear up near your clock in the menu bar. Click on it and a drop down menu will appear. Click on Japanese Kana Palette and another box will pop up full of japanese characters. Step 06. Click on the character you want and go from there. The beauty of this is you can still input English as well as Japanese, but if you are typing up a large file it can be rather time consuming. Tab one is Hiragana, tab two is Katakana and tab three is English script. Hex Calculator -------------- This is handy when you need to do calculations in hex until you get used to doing it in your head. I still use this in some situations. DOS-BOX USAGE ------------- Step 01. Put Dos-Box in your 'Applications' folder and then on your toolbar. You will be using this a lot (a lot is two words people, not one). Step 02. Create a folder called 'dos' in your home folder (Your home folder being the folder with the little house icon) and place all your dos programs in there. Step 03. Start said Dos-Box program Step 04. Now you have to mount your dos folder. So type; mount c ~/dos Now you should have received a confirmation message. Step 05. Great, it's there but don't forget to switch to the mounted drive, so type; c: Step 06. Now your prompt should say c:\ and be waiting for an input. So now just type whatever program you want to start. If you have your hexcute program in /dos/hex/ folder, type; cd/hex to get to your hexpose folder, then type; hexpose.exe to start the program. There that's it people! Use the same method to start other Dos programs and you're own your way. Try to keep your folder and file names short though, it makes things much easier and have fun. If I find anything else useful to add to this I will, if you have any questions do not email me for answers, the best way to gain knowledge is to find it yourself. Also this is geared towards the 'classic' generation. I have no idea how to hack PS, DC or any other 'next gen' systems. And some extra little bits of info, if you want to use the 'F keys' you might want to activate them, and the 'CTRL key' on Mac's is used as the 'ALT key' on PC's. Hopefully you found this to be key and not costly. Lemony Snickets to all. You just caught a taste. 2007 O_Manko http://omanko.bravehost.com END