From 6ee50c53852a4497cfb0247e52e88fd19fc0782c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: RichardG867 Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2021 14:27:18 -0300 Subject: [PATCH] Add test drive to readme --- README.md | 8 ++++++-- 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 05ffec6..b109b38 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -2,9 +2,13 @@ ================ A toolkit for extracting and analyzing x86 BIOS ROM images (mostly) within the context of the 86Box project. +## Test drive + +**86Bot** on the [86Box Discord](https://86box.net/#social) has a BIOS analysis feature which uses BIOS Tools behind the scenes. Go to the `#bot-spam` channel and use the `!bios` command with an attached file or an URL. Other commands which work the same way and also leverage these tools are `!acpi` for extracting and decompiling ACPI tables, and `!epa` for extracting logo images. + ## System requirements -* **Linux**. Unfortunately, we rely on tools which contain non-portable code and generate filenames that are invalid for Windows, as well as GNU-specific extensions to shell commands. +* **Linux**. Unfortunately, we rely on tools which contain non-portable code and generate filenames that are invalid for Windows, as well as GNU-specific extensions to shell commands. For Windows users, WSL potentially works. * **Python 3.5** or newer. * **Standard gcc toolchain** for building the essential `bios_extract` tool. * **7-Zip** command line utility installed as `7z`. @@ -52,7 +56,7 @@ python3 -m biostools -a roms/0 | tee bioslist.csv * Many common file types known not to be useful, such as images, PDFs, Office documents and hardware information tool reports, are automatically discarded. * Interleaved ROMs are merged through a heuristic filename and string detection, which may lead to incorrect merging if the chunks to different interleaved ROMs are present in the same directory. * The FAT filesystem extractor relies on assumptions which may not hold true for all disk images. -* PCX (AMI) and EPA (Award) images are automatically converted to PNG if the aforementioned optional dependency is installed. +* EPA (Award) and PCX (AMI) images are automatically converted to PNG if the aforementioned optional dependency is installed. * Some Intel motherboard BIOSes (particularly from the AMIBIOS 6 era) will not be extracted properly due to a different address line inversion mechanism. This is a known issue with the Intel update format concatenator which may eventually be solved. * Extraction of the following BIOS distribution formats is **not implemented** due to the use of unknown compression methods: * Evergreen ETI (an ugly hack exists)