Sunday, May 21, 2023

Ancient Backup Files Part 3

If you look back, you'll see I've mentioned some backup files that I've had laying around for a long time.  I had taken some backups of my Dos / Windows hard drives circa 1995 to tape, then DD'd the tapes to a Linux box circa 2002 and just grabbed the files.  I can't remember what software I used to create the backups, but I always assumed it was Norton Desktop.

Yesterday while I was wandering the internet I came across a mention of Central Point Backup.  I seem to recall having that at one point too so maybe that is what I used.

I did find a github project that talks about that format here https://github.com/RetroReversing/retroReversing/blob/master/tools/CentralPointBackupVisualizer.html#L31 and at some point I'll compare my notes with what that project says.  I just wanted to record it here so I wouldn't lose it :)

Someday I hope to create a program to read the files and extract the files in them to see if there is anything of importance in there (BBS System files I hope!).


Berkeley System's After Dark

Years ago, in the Windows 3.1 & 95 era there was a company called Berkeley Systems that had a screen saver.  Their most famous one was the Flying Toasters.  I personally liked the Looney Tune ones.  I had a few of their separate packages, Star Trek TNG, Simpsons, Games and others that I can't remember.

I did create a couple of AD modules but nothing super exciting.

One thing I'd really like to be able to do is strip the graphics out of the modules, however, I still haven't been able to find a way to do it.  The resource pullers that I've tried just don't seem to be able to identify them... one of these days I will try to dig though the programs again.

Every once in a while I'd poke at the install zip files but always found they were protected with a password.  I was never able to find one on the internet and I didn't have a zip password cracker so I just ignored it for a while.  I had a copy of my old "install" folder so I always just used that to poke around when I felt like it

Yesterday, I decided to poke some more and as I was browsing one the of install files (install.ins) I noticed text near the list of zip files that said "striketeam" and I thought, that's an odd phrase to be in there.  So I tried that as the password on one of the zip files and it worked.  Cool!

I am having an issue finding my other install disks, however, I did find the Simpsons install disks and it used the same password.

Now if I could just figure out how to pull the graphics... and sound would be nice too.  When poking through the module files, I see "CSTM" in multiple places like various resource files.  I would swear that was some kind of music / sound format but I can't find anything online that really talks about it much and I just can't remember that far back (almost 30 years!).

Ah well... at least I figured out the zip password, give me hope that I'll figure out the other stuff too.  

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