Re: Searching for Bit Machinator program...

From: Marko Mäkelä (Marko.Makela_at_HUT.FI)
Date: 2002-07-17 13:19:56

Andras,

I can't directly answer your question, but here is an idea:

> I would like to get a runnable version, as I've found a heap of
> ASCII files (apparently the archive of such a BBS) and I'd like to
> try some of the programs. Bit Machinator itself is also in the
> collection... but of course it is encoded with Bit Machinator :-(

The encoding cannot be that difficult, can it?  First compose a table
of the characters that appear in the encoding.  I'd bet that it uses
64 different characters, which yields a 4:3 expansion ratio.

Take the source code of uudecode or a BASE64 decoder as a starting
point, and replace the character table.  You need an encoded file and
a piece of known plaintext.  The Bit Machinator program serves both
purposes: you already have the encoded file, and the plaintext
probably starts with the bytes 01 08 xx 08, the beginning of a BASIC
program.

If you provided a link to the encoded representation of the program,
you could get some reverse engineering assistance from me and others
on this list.

	Marko

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