curious question, why the need to alloc/dealloc that 4K block?

[hw-claudio]

Hi, I am looking at the instructions and I wonder about that 4K block, why is it needed, and why just after the first dump?
Is it a mandatory step? what happens under the hood?

[BenjaminSoelberg]

Hi The 4K Block (which will result in a gap of 4096 bytes plus one 16 byte memory info block) between first an secondary dump is to create a difference in memory where only the relocations will be different when the two dumps are compared. Effectively the two loaded Exefiles will be at least 0x1010 bytes apart. This will allow the the tool to recalculate/recover the relocation table which was lost while packing the original exe file. So it is needed. And if you need further info then just ask away. Mvh / Best regards Benjamin Sølberg

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Den 9. aug. 2022 kl. 21.57 skrev Claudio Fontana ***@***.***>:  Hi, I am looking at the instructions and I wonder about that 4K block, why is it needed, and why just after the first dump? Is it a mandatory step? what happens under the hood? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.

[BenjaminSoelberg]

Oh btw this tool is only useful in Dos and does not work under Windows as it was made more then 25 years ago. Just a FYI :-)

[hw-claudio]

thanks, that's very clear!
The tool is magical btw, it's just great! Used it to change a few things in old games (gold box series).
I used it in combination with dosbox-debug worked perfectly. Thanks so much!!