Software Hacks

1032 Articles

Even DOOM Can Now Run DOOM!

July 12, 2022 by 30 Comments

For years now, the standard test of any newly hacked piece of hardware has been this: can it run DOOM? id Software’s 1993 classic first-person shooter has appeared on everything, but here’s one from [kgsws] that’s a bit special. It’s DOOM, running inside DOOM itself.

So how has this feat been achieved? There’s a code execution exploit inside the original DOS DOOM II executable, and that has been used to run the more modern Chocolate Doom within the original. It appears as an in-game texture, giving an odd effect as if it’s being watched in a cinema.

The video below the break shows the game-in-game in action, but the real value lies in its in-depth description of the exploit, that takes us through some of the inner workings of the game and ably explains what’s going on. It finishes up with a specially made cinema WAD in which to play DOOM-in-DOOM, and even Hexen-in-DOOM. Pick up your trusty chainsaw, it’s going to be a long night.

Continue reading “Even DOOM Can Now Run DOOM!” →

Automate Internet Life With Python

July 12, 2022 by 19 Comments

Most of us are adept enough with computers that you know what they can easily do and what they can’t. Invent a new flavor of ice cream? Not easy. Grab the news headlines related to Arduinos from your favorite news feed? Relatively easy. But, of course, the devil is in the details. FreeCodeCamp has a 3-hour course from [Frank Andrade] that dives into the gory details of automating web tasks using Python and a variety of libraries like Path, Xpath, and Selenium. You can watch the course, below.

Topics start off with grabbing tables from websites and PDFs. But it quickly graduates to general-purpose web scraping and even web automation. These techniques can be very useful for testing browser-based applications, too.

By the end, you’ve created an executable that grabs news every day and automatically generates an Excel report. There’s also a little wind down about WhatApp automation. A little something for everyone. We also greatly approved of [Frank]’s workspace which appears in the background. Looks like he would enjoy reading Hackaday.

Honestly, while we’ve seen easier methods of automating the browser, there’s something appealing about having the control something like Python affords. Sure beats building hardware to simulate a human-in-the-loop.

Continue reading “Automate Internet Life With Python” →

Injecting A Bit Of Rust Via DLL

July 11, 2022 by 16 Comments

Ever been frustrated that a software package was missing a feature you want? In the best-case scenario, the software would be open source and you could just tweak the code and rebuild. But in many cases, the software is closed-source. In the case of [Faster than lime], he found a SNES emulator (Snes9X) that didn’t support controllers to showcase the technique. So with a little bit of Rust, he wrote some code that could be injected into the emulator via DLL injection.

It’s a fantastic tutorial that shows the technique. He starts by creating a Rust project that uses the DLL-Syringe crate (the rust version of dependency management). This crate does much of the heavy lifting involved with injecting a DLL into a target process. The rest of the journey is an excellent process of going through the Windows documentation and implementing the features. The DLL just reads the controller and then sends the right input to the program. In the end, [Faster than lime] has a great injected DLL and we have a wonderful time learning about Rust and debugging in an injection environment!

It’s been a while since we last covered DLL injection, and it’s nice to see how the process has evolved. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Injecting A Bit Of Rust Via DLL” →

Grok Rust In A Flash

July 10, 2022 by 19 Comments

Here at Hackaday, we are big proponents of using the best tool for the job (or making your own tool if required). But when all you know how to use is Java, everything looks object-oriented. Bad jokes aside, it is important to have many tools at your disposal to allow you to choose wisely. Why not spend a few minutes with [No Boilerplate] and understand the basics of Rust?

The focus of the video is to go through as much Rust as possible and teach you how to read it. The idea is that rather than work your way from basic concepts, [No Boilerplate] will go over the vast majority of what you’ll see in a Rust-based program. Whether you’re coming from an object-oriented, functional, or just plain C-based background; you’ll feel comfortable since he makes an effort to compare to what you already know. Some of Rust’s more unique features are covered such as mutability, scope, matching, and strings. However, lifetimes, closures, and traits were left out to keep the video short. These topics are covered in an excellent blog post by [Faster than lime] which this video was based on.

What isn’t discussed is running Rust in a no-std environment like a PIC32. Rust has seen exciting development over the past few years with the Linux kernel getting rusty and the compiler getting continually better. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Grok Rust In A Flash” →

Think You Know How Mario Kart Works?

July 4, 2022 by 3 Comments

In what looks like the kickoff of a fun video series, [MrL314] takes us on a quick but deep tour of how the AI in Mario Kart works. (Video, embedded below.) Don’t play much Mario Kart anymore? Well, have a look anyway because some of the very simple tricks that make Bowser pass Princess Peach without running into her might be useful in any manner of pre-programmed navigation scenarios.

Quick spoilers. The CPU players move through different zones, each with a desired speed and a vector direction field that changes the direction they should point in. Only when they run off course do they actually compute headings to their target. Setting this desired direction and speed beforehand greatly reduces the on-the-fly computation needed.

Then you throw other players into the mix, and a very simple distance-dependant turning algorithm makes for clean overtaking. This effect is hand-tweaked for the particular racecourse, though, because you don’t want Luigi driving off the thin stretches on Rainbow Road. For more technical details, you can check out [MrL314]’s notes.

If anything, this video gives us a further appreciation of the clever little hacks that create apparently complex interactions from tremendously simple rules. Remember Mario Kart when you’re programming in that next multi-gigabyte neural network model, OK?

Continue reading “Think You Know How Mario Kart Works?” →

Dithering Makes Everything Cooler: Now Even Animated

July 4, 2022 by 37 Comments

[dukope] was writing a game, Return of the Obra Dinn, with a fantastic visual style. One of the choices was to make everything in glorious one-bit color, otherwise known as black and white, and then dither it back to monochrome. You know, like they used to do on the Mac Plus.

If dithering is your aesthetic, then it makes a ton of sense to take it seriously. And it’s absolutely beautiful – check out the video below.

But what’s even more amazing is [dukope]’s attention to detail on the dithering. For instance, this post on the TIG forums details the problems and solutions when you have a dithered image that needs to also be animated. You want the dots to stay relatively constant on the object as the virtual camera pans across the scene, and that’s going to necessitate a custom algorithm. And if you think that’s cool, have a look at how the book at the center of the game is animated.

What can we say. We loved dithering before, but this post has made our love even deeper.

Continue reading “Dithering Makes Everything Cooler: Now Even Animated” →

Need A Linux Kernel Module? Scratch That

July 4, 2022 by 15 Comments

If you have been for (or against) Rust in the Linux kernel, get ready for a Linux kernel module written in… Scratch. That’s right. Scratch, the MIT-developed language with blocks popular for teaching kids to code. We didn’t mean “from scratch.” We meant IN Scratch. The bootstrap code and Makefile is out there on GitHub.

Of course, it is a simple module and the reason it is possible is because of the scratchnative system that lets you compile Scratch into C code. If you want to look at the decidedly simple code, you can open it in your browser.

Continue reading “Need A Linux Kernel Module? Scratch That” →