how to "open" a rom?

[jackleu]

can anyone please teach me how to "open"/"edit" a rom(not playing it)?

is there a software to do so?

let say i downloaded a GBA FF4 rom, i want to look what's the setting/data inside, how can i do that?

thank you very much

[Mirage]

Most of what's inside a rom is machine code, which most people can't understand. You can get savestate editors or something for a few games though, but these have to be written for each and every game, so not every ROM has one.

[a nirvana fan]

If anything, shouldnt this be in the General Gaming Discussion or something? And sorry I havent got a clue about ROMs apart from how to play them:D

[Hawkeye]

Sometimes the emulators themselves will allow you to see inside the ROM, but I'm not sure which ones.

[-N-]

notepad! and learn assembly you bums.

[Mirage]

That's not assembly you get when you open it though.

[Samuraid]

notepad! and learn assembly you bums.
Each console has its own ISA though. Thus learning assembly and binary opcodes/format for each type of ROM can be a pain. :p