This page contains a listing of software written by me. This is Free software, meaning the source code is available under one Free license or another. Enjoy.

The Cheat

The legendary universal game trainer for Mac OS X. This baby let's you search the memory footprints of other running processes and even do a little... tweaking. The most apparent application for this fun toy is changing the values of interesting variables within games in real time. Yeah, that might be considered cheating, which is where this little program gets its apt name. Here is a rundown of the most notable features:

Multi-variable support. Find strings, integers, floating point numbers, whatever.
Bonjour-enabled networking. Now you can cheat from across the room!
File saving and opening. Once you find a cheat, save it for another day.

I wrote this app when I was in high school five or six years ago. I had become acquainted with a similar program back in the Classic [Mac OS] days called Pandora's Box. When I moved to Mac OS X, I was disappointed to find nothing comparable. As Mac OS X is very much a beast of a different stripe, there were interesting memory protection issues to overcome. Not being a BSD or UNIX guy before, I did the only thing I could think to do: I searched the system header files for anything that would make this possible. Obviously I figured it out, and I also "figured out" Objective-C and Cocoa along the way. I haven't been able to maintain this app since my Mac died, but I'm pretty sure it still works with more modern iterations of Mac OS X. This software was also made possible by other contributors:

Andrew Smith
Ed Palma
Adrien Pujol
Many others whom I have apparently forgotten over the years. Sorry!

Notice: This page links to some unofficial, 3rd-party releases of this software. I personally have not tested any contributed versions, but inasmuch as they work and don't wreak havoc, my thanks goes to those people who sent them to me and helped keep this software in a current, working state. As usual, this software comes "as is" without warranty. Please exercise due caution when running any unofficial versions of this software.

Download It

This version of The Cheat was contributed by nil. This build reportedly contains bug-fixes and improved stability. It is a universal binary that should work on both PPC and newer Intel Macs. Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later is suggested. Read more about this version here.

The Cheat 1.2.4

Size: 397K
 MD5: 41d52ad916eb3e0677dd28a5069ed322
SHA1: 58b8ad1235ac4a4702e6d3e463e4533c41865d85

The Cheat 1.2.4 Source Code

Size: 436K
 MD5: 69656db0da0459cecb1f26afba44ce50
SHA1: 6a34a54cdd6e5ee526cb2b2ab36f0e5c86d29f7d

This version of The Cheat was contributed by Adrien Pujol. This build reportedly works on Leopard. It works on Intel Macs, but it has been reported to not work on applications running in Rosetta. Read more about this version here.

The Cheat 1.2.2

Size: 661K
 MD5: 7cdbb07ffe22b1eca4db559ef9936f94
SHA1: 70a175ab9758ecb82c52074f3b1db1153697543b

The Cheat 1.2.2 Source Code

Size: 4.8M
 MD5: a1770407684029b884197d75838bfc91
SHA1: 6264de66d2f66166c0f2b26b3e4db97254db0348

Older Files

The Cheat 1.2.1 UB (contributed by yadgor)

Size: 358K
 MD5: 49ff711bb08cdcad5f97d8e5347bd6a8
SHA1: 6c5520996059db5b5d32ad91c0444b682a3238a9

The Cheat 1.2.1 (last official release)

Size: 213K
 MD5: 5f9244c96943a7786924dfcd132403d8
SHA1: 91061ac439538a494b6e91a1c7c8fbee4abaa34e

The Cheat 1.2.1 Source Code (last official release)

Size: 337K
 MD5: 3fe38a8d719e9bfad8e1f6a600d99a49
SHA1: b07cff7ed5c1f9fa63f94c83619a285c4e479f89

Getting Help

Reports suggest that you must issue the command sudo sysctl -w kern.tfp.policy=1 from the terminal if you're using The Cheat on an Intel Mac. This software requires patience and a willingness to experiment and learn new things. Programmers may automatically understand what to do, but The Cheat comes with pretty good documentation accessible from the Help menu if you're having a hard time. If you're completely new to the concept of a game trainer, your first stop should be this step-by-step tutorial which will show you the basics and give you an idea of the possibilities this software provides.

The Edge

This is a tiny desktop utility card game modeled after King's Corners. Nowadays, something like this would probably be best written as a Dashboard plug-in, and it wouldn't be difficult either. This small app took me a couple hours to program. I made it because I like the card game, and I was learning new parts of AppKit (Cocoa). It's kind of fun. If I remember correctly, there's also a built-in cheat which might help you if you get frustrated. On the other hand, moving this app to the Trash might be a better way to relieve that frustration. Your call.

Download It

The Edge 1.3 (with source code)

Size: 66K
 MD5: dbb59418bac4bc75241c83b75b21f01d
SHA1: 9e793b9066a5ef7c2a2eb1ade6967bf075773aaa

Charles McGarvey <onefriedrice 4t brokenzipper d0t com> (PGP Key)