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VCHE - Virtual Console Hex Editor

Author:

Diego Javier Grigna <diego@grigna.com>

Q: What is VCHE?

It's a hex editor which lets you see all 256 characters as found in video ROM, even control and extended ASCII, it uses the /dev/vcsa* devices to do it. It also could edit non-regular files, like hard disks, floppies, CDROMs, ZIPs, RAM, and almost any device.
What is /dev/vcs*?
They are character devices for virtual console terminals. They refer to the memory of the current displayed virtual console terminal. VCHE reads and write to this devices to do all the screen I/O. For more information on (vcs*|vcsa*) see the Linux kernel sources 2.x.x:

linux/drivers/char/vc_screen.c

and the manual page:

man vcs

Q: VCHE do not run on my terminal!
Q: What are those vche, vche-raw and vche-nc files? Q: .....

Since VCHE uses the /dev/vcs* devices, which refer to the memory of the current virtual console terminal, vche will not work with people logged from remote terminals, X terms, etc.
But starting at version 1.6.0, vche also comes with a raw and an ncurses version, for people who needs to use a hex editor from telnet/ssh/X/etc sessions.
Once you typed "make; make install" you will have three binaries:
vche ----> It is the Virtual Console version of VCHE, it shows you
all 256 characters as found in video ROM.

vche-nc ----> It is the NCURSES version, it will use that library to

                  do all the screen I/O, so it will not show non-printable
                  characters.

vche-raw ----> It is the Run AnyWhere version (or RAW version, his name

                  is twofold), it does all the screen I/O using the linux
                  console escape and control sequences, for more information
                  see the console_codes(4) man page.

                  I called it RAW because of the way it comunicates with the
                  console driver, and also because it Run AnyWhere (remote
                  sessions, X terminals, etc) without the need to set TERM
                  variables and installing ncurses. Internally ncurses do
                  almost the same thing that the RAW version under Linux,
                  but it was the way I coded under Linux my applications,
                  before I learned to code with ncurses, it was the raw way.

Q: Where can I get VCHE?

See

http://www.grigna.com/diego/linux/vche/ or

ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/file/hex/vche-1.7.2.tar.gz

If you have (problems|questions|bug|features to add) please mail me to:

diego@grigna.com