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README.txt
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README.txt
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exhal / inhal
HAL Laboratory NES/SNES/GB (de)compression tools
(version 1.21)
by Devin Acker (Revenant), 2013-2015
https://github.com/devinacker
exhal and inhal are tools designed to decompress and recompress/insert data used by several NES,
SNES and Game Boy games developed by HAL Laboratory.
Due to the design of the original decompression algorithm (and hardware limitations), the size of
a file to be compressed is limited to 64 kilobytes (65,536 bytes). Please note that depending on
which system you are working with, the actual useful limit may be much smaller.
The compression routine used by inhal is very fast and capable of producing output which is smaller
than that of HAL's original compressor.
Source code is available at https://github.com/devinacker and is released under the terms of the
MIT license. See COPYING.txt for legal info. You are welcome to use compress.c in your own projects
(if you do, I'd like to hear about it!)
To use exhal (the decompressor):
exhal romfile offset outfile
To insert compressed data into a ROM:
inhal [-fast] infile romfile offset
To write compressed data to a new file:
inhal [-fast] -n infile outfile
Offsets can be specified in either hexadecimal (recommended) or decimal.
Using the -fast switch results in compression which is about 3 to 4 times faster, but with
slightly larger output data. Use this if you don't care about data sizes being 100% optimal.
This is a list of games which are known to use the supported compression method, or are assumed
to, based on a binary search of the games' ROMs:
Adventures of Lolo (NES/GB)
Adventures of Lolo 2 (NES)
Adventures of Lolo 3 (NES)
Alcahest (SNES)
Arcana / Card Master (SNES)
EarthBound / Mother 2 (SNES)
Ghostbusters II (GB)
HAL's Hole in One Golf / Jumbo Ozaki no Hole in One (SNES)
HyperZone (SNES)
Itoi Shigesato no Bass Tsuri No. 1 (SNES)
Kirby no KiraKira Kids (SNES)
Kirby Super Star (SNES)
Kirby's Adventure (NES)
Kirby's Dream Course / Kirby Bowl (SNES)
Kirby's Dream Land (GB)
Kirby's Dream Land 2 (GB)
Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES)
Kirby's Pinball Land (GB)
Kirby's Star Stacker / KiraKira Kids (GB)
NES Open Tournament Golf (NES)
New Ghostbusters II (NES)
Othello World (SNES)
Okamoto Ayako to Match Play Golf (SNES)
Revenge of the Gator / 66 Hiki no Wani Daikoushin (GB)
SimCity (SNES) [unused?]
SimCity 2000 (SNES)
Special Tee Shot (BS-X)
Super Famicom Box BIOS (SNES)
Trax / Totsugeki! Ponkotsu Tank (GB)
Vegas Stakes (SNES/GB)
Also note, unfortunately, that exhal cannot automatically detect or locate compressed data.
The included file "gamenotes.txt" contains an incomplete list of decompression routine addresses
to make searching easier.
These tools were originally used in the development of my Kirby's Dream Course editor. I hope you
find your own exciting use for them. (I'm not the only Kirby hacker in the West, right? *sob*)
Contact me:
Email : d at revenant1.net
IRC : "devin" on irc.badnik.net
"Revenant" on irc.oftc.net
"Revenant`" on irc.synirc.net
and irc.dal.net
Forums: http://jul.rustedlogic.net/profile.php?id=504
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=10455
Special thanks to:
- andlabs for helping me make the list of supported games
- BMF54123 for naming the programs
- Tiiffi and Anthony J. Bentley for misc. build fixes
- You for downloading (and using?) my software