Help HN: Can't open childhood files

[twooclock]

Hello HN, I was clearing my old house and got a box with a 100+ 3½ floppy disks. All except one working!

Among others I got DisplayWriter 4.0, OS/4 Warp Slovenian, dBase IV, Clipper, PowerPoint 4.0, Netscape Navigator 3.0, etc.

I found also some files with .CHT and .IMG extension which I can't find any software to open them. I know I made them, but unfortunately I can't remember which software was used. There is my family tree and chart of my height growing (which I'd like to compare now with my kids).

Some files I uploaded here: https://github.com/twooclock/KdajBi/tree/main/cht_img Files timestamp is 1990 and 1991.

Please help me find appropriate software!

So far I tried (does not work):

-ABC Flowcharter 3.01

-IBM Storyboard Plus 1.01 (5.25)

-Harvard Graphics for Windows 4.0

-Harvard Graphics for Windows 2.0 (3.5)

-HarvardGraphicsViewer

-PowerPoint 98

Googled, checked file.org, WinWorld, ... loosing hope... really makes me think about digital preservation.

Thank you!

[jesprenj]

Try using binwalk, file(1) or strings(1) to get some information about the contents of the files ... try searching found strings on Google, etc. Good luck!

--- Edit:

Those four files are really small and I can't see any person's names in them when just opening them as plaintext files, but LINEN contains some instructions for solving math systems of equations: "sistem dveh linearnih enačb z dvema neznankama. Možne rešitve". Other files seem like a listing for a music album (MARLEY: 01. No woman no cry) and possibly lyrics or something in BEATLES (eight days a week she loves you, ... Maybe something for a karaoke program). KASETA is also really short and contains no text - maybe some chiptone music, but that's just a silly guess.

To correct myself: binwalk, file and strings do not help you here. It's not even ASCII text.

[rzzzt]

BEATLES has "Stran A:", "Stran B:", and "a hard days night" in the first few bytes, the ASCII characters are interspersed with NUL (0x00) ACK (0x06) and SOH (0x01) bytes.

Edit: it might be for a cassette inlay printing/catalogue software like the following (not _exactly_ this, though): https://www.jonessoft.co.uk/inlayprint.html

Edit2: maybe they are screen memory dumps from 0xB8000 with color bytes after character codes?

[TacticalCoder]

The "identify" command is also worth a try should some a files be graphical. Not too sure if very old graphical format are supported by "identify" but it's worth a try.

[awhitby]

I would guess the CHT files are commands for text output on a dot matrix printer, or a format pretty close to that.

* The MARLEY songs are laid out in two columns (side A, side B) from left to right then top to bottom, which suggests its pretty close to a matrix of characters, rather than something more abstract/structured.

* Every character is taking up two bytes, which could be some Slovenian encoding but I doubt any European language was taking up 16 bits in the early 1990s, which makes me think every second character is a formatting for the character that precedes or follows it.

* The MARLEY title has a repetitions like "BBoobb MMaarrlleeyy" which might be the kind of overprint mode I remember dot matrixes having, where the printer prints a character then goes back and reprints it, to get a bold effect.

I would dig around for old dot matrix standards, Epson and so on.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

I think you nailed it re overprinting.

[awhitby]

I will try to message this directly, since this thread is old now:

I solved this, figuring out the file structure and encoding from the examples. I was totally wrong about the printer idea I suggested in another reply.

MARLEY.CHT, for example, looks something like this:

          ╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗                                                
          ║                                                            ║                                                
          ║                                                            ║                                                
          ║                                                            ║                                                
          ║                                                            ║                                                
          ║                                                            ║                                                
          ╠════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣                                                
          ║      BBoobb  MMaarrlleeyy  &&  TThhee  WWaaiilleerrss      ║                                                
          ║      BBoobb  MMaarrlleeyy  &&  TThhee  WWaaiilleerrss      ║                                                
          ║                        LLeeggeenndd                        ║                                                
          ╠═════════════════════════════╦══════════════════════════════╣                                                
          ║AA::                         ║BB::                          ║                                                
          ║AA::                         ║BB::                          ║                                                
          ║- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -║- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ║                                                
          ║1.No woman no cry            ║1.Three little birds          ║                                                
          ║                             ║                              ║                                                
          ║2.One love/people get ready  ║2.Buffalo soldier             ║                                                
          ║                             ║                              ║                                                
          ║3.Is this love               ║3.Waiting in a vain           ║                                                
   

etc.

You can see all the files and the code that made them here: https://github.com/econandrew/hn_mystery_files

This was a strangely satisfying task. I hope I can help the OP recover their more important files too.

[twooclock]

If I remember right tape Title (BBoobb MMaarrlleeyy && TThhee WWaaiilleerrss ) was in larger font and bold and so was tape "side marker" (AA::). Let's say it was like Arial 24pt bold, and song titles were like 10pt normal. But overall layout is perfect. Who knows maybe someday I'll find a tape in those boxes...

[twooclock]

OMG! You made it! Can't wait to try on my family tree! Can't thank you enough!!!

Btw: you know what marley.cht was for, right? I printed it out, fold it and put inside casette tape plastic box.

[zxcvbn4038]

Netscape! The pulsating throbbing N is back. I think you need to lock that disk in a box with a sprig of sage and seal it with wax.

I think the CHT files are dbase databases. IMG could be anything, lots of programs used that extension. You’ll need to get in with a hex editor and look for clues.

[rzzzt]

WinWorld got that one: https://winworldpc.com/product/netscape-navigator/30x

The page also has a link to a delightfully looking archive of Netscape browsers: https://sillydog.org/narchive/

[twooclock]

> I think you need to lock that disk in a box with a sprig of sage and seal it with wax.

Sure since I have original black floppies with gold Netscape rudder! Will do.

Unfortunately hex editor shows nothing.

[da768]

CHT, other than Harvard ChartXL, looks like some printers support it. Could be worth trying to raw print it?

Now maybe that floppy disk has corruption. (You could check if you get the same byte-for-byte output using another drive or give a run of GRC SpinRite worst case)

All the repetitive '31 02' in both CHT and IMG files make it look like it comes from the same app suite or it's just data loss somehow.

KASETA has interesting patterns in a raw pixel viewer, RGB32, 15 pixels wide, but LINEN doesn't seem to be an image.

Tried opening this with Corel Draw, Ventura Publisher or else ?

[twooclock]

>Tried opening this with Corel Draw, Ventura Publisher or else ?

No, but ChartViewer dBASE Interface seems promising since I was using dBase+Clipper at the time. I can remember what software I was using for it... :(

[19wintersp]

MARLEY seems to have more in common with KASETA, even though they have different file endings. `AA::` and `BB::`, a large section of `- - -`... and second byte alternation are present near the start of both, as well as the large section of `1`s (assuming this is all in ASCII). Are they all the same file format?

I'm guessing they're all from a word processor at this point - Text602 is a shot in the dark from a vague link on Wikipedia - and I think the file is structured as pairs of bytes, with the first being some data, and the latter being a presentation attribute. For example, I'm guessing from LINEN that `0x06` indicates superscript.

[jbullock35]

A shareware (freeware?) program called Graphics Workshop was popular in the 1990s and available from many BBSs. For example, you can get it at http://files.mpoli.fi/software/WIN32/GRAPHICS/. I mention it because it supports an IMG image format.

[BuyMyBitcoins]

Do you recall what kind of machine and operating system these disks were originally written with? You might have some luck with a local retro computing group. I don’t know much about digital preservation and old school storage media, but maybe there was a quirk with how the data was originally written on that specific disk that you just need a retro computer to untangle?

[twooclock]

It was either DOS or early Windows. Thats for sure. I'll try DisplayWriter4. It's extensions were .doc dough.

[mod]

Just a thought: maybe Netscape, or some of the other software on your disks can open the files. Import to PowerPoint or something.

[beecafe]

Try opening them in an image viewer as a RAW file, mess around with the width and height and try to spot some patterns.

[twooclock]

No luck. Contains some null chars and text. I'm guessing it was some sw to draw diagrams (boxes, lines and text). Unfortunately I can't remember even if it was dos or win.

Was always sure that I'll google it out, now not so sure anymore.

[thatannoyingguy]

I don't know if you found the program for your family tree or if you inferred that from the filename, but you could try this one: Sierra Generations Family Tree, which uses the CHT format. Do you recall using that piece of software?

[twooclock]

No. Is it from 1990? I remember more of like some charting or diagram software.

[twooclock]

OP here. Both filetypes cht and img are "images", because I remember printing them out. Cht should be somekind of chart with boxes, lines and text. Img should be an image? It's way far back so I don't trust my memory.

[phaedrus]

My first programming environment was dBASE II! Would have been cool if these were dBASE databases and I could have helped, but then again I have neither the software anymore nor knowledge of the raw binary format.

[bhbh]

It might be a long shot, but if you do think that some of those files might be images, you can try dumping their contents as hex and then use an online hex-to-image converter and see if this produces anything useful.

[scrumper]

Your IMG might be from Gem Paint? I remember that extension from my first computer, and that's what we used. It's about the right age.

EDIT: Ugh, maybe not, I looked at LINEN.IMG and there's a lot of text in there.

[BaldricksGhost]

This makes me feel old. We had no "files" when I was a kid except the kind that were on paper.

Best of luck.

[15characterslon]

It's funny you say that because kids today don't really have files either, since all the content is confined in apps.

[twooclock]

No worries! I have some c64 programs listings printed! We're not old, expirienced is the word I belive! :)

[bombcar]

Could CHT be something like PCL line drawing commands or similar?

[ChrisArchitect]

OS/4 Warp?! was that a thing?! sorry just jumped out at me

[twooclock]

Sorry it was OS/2 4.0 Warp. I stand corrected. I worked on it's translation. Was superb against win 3.1 at the time but users choose other way...

[RonaldOlzheim]

Do you still need some help?

[twooclock]

It would be nice if I got original software files were made with. Still looking for ChartViewer for dBase interface (?).

[shimonabi]

ChartViewer dBASE Interface

[twooclock]

This one sound like it. Do you know what software, how to install? Goo already. Thank you.