                            Hex Editor v1.8
                            ---------------

Hex is freeware.  It works fine for me, but I make no guarantees or take any
responsibility for what happens.  You use this product at your own risk.  If 
there is a problem, let me know, and I will attempt to fix it.

You can do just about whatever you want with Hex.  You can give it to anybody
or upload it to any archive or BBS, provided that the original files as supplied
by me remain intact and no charge is made.

Hex doesn't have to be registered, and you do not need to buy a licence to use it.
If, however, you want to send me money, I won't stop you.

Hex may not be distributed with any commercial product without a prior license
agreement with me.  If you want to distribute Hex with free products, go ahead.

Hex was written in C and compiled with Borland Turbo C++.
Minimum requirements are a 386 running DOS 5.0 (should work with 3.3), and it
will run under Windows 3.1 & 95.  I have not tried Hex with NT.

I wrote Hex because I needed a portable binary editor that could handle very
large files.  At the same time, I wanted some basic functionality like 
searching and jumping.


I hope you will find Hex to be a useful tool.


Features
--------

- Files up to 2 gigs in size can be edited
- Unsaved changes are highlighted
- You can undo changes in the order they were made, or you can undo
  a specific change
- Current address is displayed
- You can jump to any address in the file
- Pop-up ASCII Character Table can be viewed at any time.  Codes are given
  in hex, decimal, octal, binary, and displayed as a character
- You can search for a hex sequence or an ascii string
- Calculate the Hex/Decimal/Octal/Binary equivalant of a number
- If a file is read only, you can view the file without making changes


Limitations
-----------

All the edits that are made are stored in the internal heap of the program.  
This means that there are no temporary files, and this is what gives Hex the
ability to work with files that are up to 2 gigs in size.  However, this 
limits the amount of editing you can do before a save is necessary.  I don't
really think this is a problem, because you can make approximately 4500 
changes to a file before you will run out of heap space.  Even once you run
out of space, the program won't crash.  A window will pop up explaining that
you must save your work before making any further changes (saving frees up
the memory that the changes are temporarily stored in).  Even if you decide
not to save, you can still browse, search, and jump around the file.


Usage
-----
hex <filename>
    or
hex


Special Keys
------------
TAB =  Toggle between HEX and ASCII
F1  =  Help
F2  =  Save Changes
F3  =  Goto Specified Address
F4  =  Display ASCII Character Table
F5  =  Search from current position
       HEX area -> Find HEX Sequence
       ASCII area -> Find String (Case Sensitive)
F6  =  Decimal/HEX/Octal/Binary Converter
F7  =  Undo Last Change
Shift-F7  =  Restore (undo) Selected Change
F9  =  About
ESC =  QUIT (No Save)


How to Install
--------------

Put Hex in a directory on your computer or run it off a floppy drive.


Contacting Me
-------------

Questions or Comments?
  Don't understand one of the features?
  Think Hex needs another feature?
  You found a bug?!

Marc Bellusci
marcjb@yahoo.com
