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From: c9c-eh@dorothy.Berkeley.EDU (Warner Young (WHY))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: loading and running executables on the atari
Message-ID: <4425@zen.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sat, 17-Oct-87 15:22:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: zen.4425
Posted: Sat Oct 17 15:22:34 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Oct-87 13:05:16 EDT
References: <439@ecrcvax.UUCP> <318@cogpsi.UUCP>
Sender: news@zen.berkeley.edu
Reply-To: c9c-eh@dorothy.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Warner Young (WHY))
Organization: Safety Seal, Inc. (non-dangerous software)
Lines: 39
Keywords: load link exec atari

In article <318@cogpsi.UUCP> tom@cogpsi.UUCP (Tom Vijlbrief) writes:
>In article <439@ecrcvax.UUCP> alan@ecrcvax.UUCP (Alan P. Sexton) writes:
>>I know that there is a header block that has specific info about the
>>sizes of the text, data and bss areas etc., but I also know that the atari
>(Rest of text deleted)
>
>Case b is indeed the way it is implemented. The binary file consists
>of three parts. 
>1. The header
>2. The Code and data.
>3. The relocation information.
>
> ...
>TOS patches the code and data by adding the actual position
>of the program in memory to all absolute memory references which the
>binary image contains.
>Because the symbol table has been deleted by the linker, TOS has to use a
>special relocation table. This table specifies the offset between
>succesive patch locations in the binary image. This format is
>compact and allows for fast patching.


	Can anyone elucidate on the exact formats of the Header section
and the  relocation information?   I'd like to  experiment with some of
the stuff I have, but I don't want to do it blindly.

	Also, while I'm at it, can someone tell me some common ways to
go about de-protecting  copy-protected programs?   I have some games I
would like to  de-protect, because  it's a  pain to wait  for the next
release of ProCopy to back them up.

	Thanks.

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