Subj : Cracking Dos Software
To   : Mike Powell
From : AKAcastor
Date : Fri Apr 05 2024 14:31:16

 MP> I have noticed it also.  I wondered if it had something to do with the
 MP> "speed up" solution offered in the documentation -- the SET OUTBUFF=ON
 MP> parameter that is added to the BAT file before the game starts.

I am not using SET OUTBUFF=ON on my system and I am having the same problem.  Running in DOS 6.22 w/X00 FOSSIL, inside DOSBox-X.

 MP> Also, slightly off-topic, but I figured out another one of the BUCK.CFG
 MP> settings.  Line 9 is the number of turns (I am guessing per day).  It was
 MP> set at default to 15.  I increased it to 25.

Nice find!

I wonder if it might be feasible to patch Buccaneer to fix the messages flashing off the screen, and maybe any other quirks we find.  I think I might give it a try.  I need to make a list of quirks to check.


For DOS reverse engineering, I am using IDA Pro 8.3 and the debugger in DOSBox-X.  

I guess the 16-bit DOS support was removed from the free IDA version a while ago, but there is an older version available that had 16-bit DOS support (I haven't tried it myself, since I own a licensed Pro copy).

IDA Free version 5.0 is available here:
https://www.scummvm.org/news/20180331/

I think Ghidra probably has 16-bit DOS support but that's just a guess, I haven't used it at all (my guess is just based on its generally wide support).


I was pleasantly surprised at how well IDA's decompiler worked on some functions in the 386 version of Blue Wave mail reader.  IDA won't decompile 16-bit code (just disassemble it), but when the decompilation succeeds on 32-bit code it can be super useful.  I actually copied and pasted some C code for the keygen.


Chris/akacastor

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