Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!oddjob!mimsy!eneevax!umd5!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!agate!eris!doug
From: doug@eris (Doug Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Hypercard binary format
Message-ID: <9142@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 23 Apr 88 19:32:34 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: doug@eris.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 21
Keywords: hypercard, binary format, reverse engineering

1) From what I've heard, the binary file format of hypercard is
undocumented. Has anyone reverse engineered it? Even partially?

2) I heard a rumor that Bill Atkinson said that he would release
the binary specs if and when someone came up with a Hypercard lookalike
on the IBM PC. Anyone know if this is true, or what it may imply?

3) A friend of mine wrote an article for BMUG that discusses Apple's
patent on image compression, which *may* have something (everything?)
to do with the hard part of the reverse engineering in #1 above.
Anyone interested in a summary? It was in the Fall 1987 BMUG, I
believe; author was Mark Thorson.

4) I'd like to be able to recognize hypercard binaries as such when
they get thrown onto other systems (BBS's, Unix, etc). Is there a
magic number or something that makes them easily identifiable?

Thanks for any and all help.

	Doug Merritt		doug@mica.berkeley.edu (ucbvax!mica!doug)
			or	ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug
			or	sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt