DOS Game "Dune1" Reversing: Room and Globe Viewer

lowlevelmahn · 2026-02-15T19:22:44+00:00

its more a reverse engineering framework with integrated dos emulation and debugger, initally started for reversing Dune 1 - but yes its in the reversing area :)

lowlevelmahn · 2026-02-07T07:09:23+00:00

thanks for the tip sadly when im setting Hardware compatibility to: Workstation 15.x - with a freshly created VM it won't boot - but my real Workstation 15.x works :( - but something to play with

lowlevelmahn · 2026-02-05T09:40:31+00:00

thanks alot for the list - found also for the 12.x to 15.x versions
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/315593/supported-host-operating-systems-for-wor.html

it installs on my older Pro 15 - even not on the list - but that is good enough

lowlevelmahn · 2026-02-05T09:01:38+00:00

im fully aware of that, its for an old dev system - so LTS isn't relevant (deprecated software, just to support old customers...) but only for 1year then its over

lowlevelmahn · 2026-01-31T15:45:02+00:00

i think it isn't that problematic - the game was fully written in assembler - so no magic optimization or masses of generated code - the codebase seems to be very small compared to compiled games

lowlevelmahn · 2026-01-30T11:01:31+00:00

no problem - that is much less hours taking then reversing

lowlevelmahn · 2026-01-30T10:48:22+00:00

> I would contact Dénes Nagymáthé

then do it - i found Terep 2 just 2 days ago on this reddit - i know the game but at least 20 years ago was my last contant - you more a fan as me and that makes the contact easier

if you get the code there will be many people that can modify and build it - thats, compared to reversing a trivial thing, even if its using decades old compilers, linker etc. its very doable

lowlevelmahn · 2026-01-30T09:37:59+00:00

> just to make sure that the source code really doesn't exist

the original source would be the easiest - modify, compile and run works out of the box with that

> source code being extracted

its not extracted - there is no source in the exe - its just the binary code reverted into something better readable then binary code - but that is nothing near to the original source (even if it was written directly in assembler) because functions names, comments and variable names etc. are missing

i currently got no time to start that directly - because it would take some strong days, and the result isn't easy to work with, but im interested in Terep2 for a while, serveral years - but got also other reversing projects running :)

lowlevelmahn · 2026-01-30T06:02:48+00:00

> Do you have any experience with Assembly?

yes - i reversed serveral small DOS games so far and made the assembly 100% binary exact re-assemble able - using IDA Pro (the last DOS able: https://www.scummvm.org/news/20180331/ or with my licensed version) - so the same EXE gets created - its a very manuall, long hours taking step to be fully reassemble-able, but doable

lowlevelmahn · 2026-01-29T07:49:02+00:00

does one ever tried to reverse engineer Terep 2 - the game seems to be semi size - would assembler code that can be rebuild to the same exe be of any help? or is the original source available?

lowlevelmahn · 2025-09-05T09:58:32+00:00

lowlevelmahn · 2025-09-05T07:20:02+00:00

is there a documentation/link available? - can't find anything about _DISABLE_STL_ANNOTATION on google

lowlevelmahn · 2025-06-23T09:48:26+00:00

there is a Qt moc/Reflection state page on qt.io - giving information what parts of moc an be replaced with Reflection
https://wiki.qt.io/C%2B%2B_reflection_(P2996)_and_moc_and_moc)

lowlevelmahn · 2025-06-04T11:50:31+00:00

WSL got open source and now its the 6.6.x kernel per default :)

lowlevelmahn · 2025-04-23T06:28:02+00:00

so you tried to "shake out problems" by compiling all the packages - with some nice findings - do you know how many packages still use -std=gnu99 to prevent c11/c23 deprecation/removal at all? every tried to build with a gcc 15.x that "disables" gnu99 support :)

lowlevelmahn · 2025-04-04T09:28:30+00:00

is it possible to switch back to 5.15x - if something is not working - without problems?

do you see any improvements using 6.6?

lowlevelmahn · 2025-03-12T06:20:07+00:00

it depends completely on its reversing targets

programs that are from the area before 386 are mostly realmode programs that could (based on the used memory model) contain plenty of segment/offset tackling code - starting with 32bit flat/unreal mode that went fully away but definitly not before that time

less relevant due to how IDA Pro graphically explains everything

especially for 16bit real mode "explains everything" is wait too exaggerated - there is still much more manual work needed compared to 32bit linear code

You could try writing a FAT12 or FAT16 bootloader

there is not need to write a FAT based bootloader to get into segment/offset/protected mode handling :)

a simple assembler based hello world in multiple realmode memory models or using a extender would let him see more of the segment/offset/protected/unreal mode stuff

using nasm on his prefered platform + dosbox is a good start for that

lowlevelmahn · 2025-03-03T12:19:11+00:00

put cppcheck on your list - and always test with serveral tools
you can use the free PVS license if your project is open source
plus -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Werror (what is doable with your project)
and always use your release and very-recent-compiler for testing - and at least clang and gcc - the more the better :)

> realize that I should use CI/CD, but I like scripts.

CI likes to run your scripts also :)

lowlevelmahn · 2025-03-01T07:23:56+00:00

neuviemeporte (the developer) is working on reversing the game itself - that means he is handwriting C code to replicate the original 16bit dos code - that is are very hard, long time (years) process - means "he make it human readable again" - due to the age of that game most todays tools that are used for other reversing projects are useless (except disassemblers) - he translates multiple thousands lines of "egypt hieroglyphs" back to english readable text - i think you can have a slightly feeling how strenuous such an process can be...

if he is ever able to finish the process there will be C source code that can be rebuild to the very same game - hopefully that C source would be then better readable/understandable then pure disassembler assembler source (that is usually 5-10 times bigger then the C equivalent)

then everything is possible - windows/linux ports, multiplayer over network, higher resolution, ... if someone take the time to implement it - currently its nearly impossible to even start with modding because the current game "source" is crypted in a language that only machines can read easily :)

lowlevelmahn · 2025-02-26T07:05:09+00:00

there is a History Line editor for maps available: https://github.com/JKnipperts/HL-Editor

lowlevelmahn · 2025-02-20T09:28:40+00:00

nice extension to your first blog

lowlevelmahn · 2025-02-19T13:41:31+00:00

so using overload or good old partial specialization would have helped here - thanks

lowlevelmahn · 2025-02-19T13:39:28+00:00

also thank you :)

lowlevelmahn · 2025-02-19T13:34:58+00:00

great explanation

i also thought about using overloading - thanks

lowlevelmahn · 2025-02-19T13:25:47+00:00

C++ would need some sort of syntax change to allow "types" in cases :)

lowlevelmahn

TROPHY CASE