Official Bare Metal Discussion

Official discussion thread for Bare Metal. Please do not post any spoilers or big hints.

any hints?

The text to the challenge gave me two helpful hints to solve it.

I don’t know if I am typing the answer wrong or that the answers I get are wrong.
I type HTB {“characters that I have managed to figure out”}.
Please tell me any clues or if I am doing something wrong or writing it wrong.

Like many other challenges the output will contain “HTB{…}”. You don’t need to add “HTB{” and “}”. If you can’t read “HTB” in the output your must try harder.

i’ve flashed tat hex file using avrdude into arduino nano and interacted with screen command but yet no hints

Should this one be solvable without physical hardware?

Yeah! All the HW challenges are solvable without HW and also there are NO extra hints if someone has the corresponding hardware (no messages in the debugging interface).

Does it require the ability to simulate hardware? My assumption after looking at this assembly and scratching my head at this repeating sequence of clear and set commands is that there must be something I’m missing.

Sometimes you just need a good night’s sleep. Best hint I can provide is if you did diogt’s other challenge (Mission Pinpossible) follow your intuition on this one.

@sheeets It is solvable without actual hardware. Even I was struck at that repeated set and clear commands. Due to which I’ve decided to flash that into atmega 328p microcontroller and I was interacting it with screen but got nothing.

Yeah, the intended solution is pure reversing and reading datasheets… no simulation, or real HW!

Ah ah that was nice! Again a great challenge @diogt!

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Well, this has been a fun challenge indeed. As someone else said, kinda of “Operation Pinpossible”. As its very same creator said, all you need is a reversing tool, some data-sheets and a bit of scripting. I have to admit that I do enjoy these hardware chals so much.

Give it a try; for those still stuck, all you need is patience and some basic skills to understand what the code is doing and why.