Shoot me an e-mail at saxxonpike@gmail.com. I can whack at it with a hex editor or something. Probably used some form of LZ or Huffman like everyone else.

I sent you an e-mail from my Hotmail.com address. Did you get it? Thanks for your help.

It seems your e-mail provider rejected the e-mail I initially sent. Did you get an e-mail from me with a link to a public Google Drive folder? It should contain a file called "Install.zip".

Got it.

I had a preliminary look at this format. Some really quick notes:

- Headers for each file in the archive are 48 bytes:
+00h - 3 bytes, 1Ah 45h 41h indicates file information
+03h - 12 bytes, name of the file
+15h - 4 bytes, uncompressed length of the file
+19h - 4 bytes, compressed length of the file
+30h - start of compressed data

- There is no indication how many files are in a PEA archive. Read until the file information doesn't make sense or the end of the file is reached.

- Haven't dug deep enough to identify the compression used. More to come later..

Okay, thank you. I'm curious as to what you will find out.

I tried STUNS (STupid UNcompreSsor), but that didn't help.

Alright, it's been a while but:

After reading http://www.shikadi.net/ll (which mentions 9 bit LZW data) and experimenting with the actual chunks of compressed data in the *.pea files (see the first post) it turns out that when reading it as chunks of 9 bits each and then converting those chunks to strings recognizable pieces that are also present in the data after decompressing it (using the installer) can be extracted. The data doesn't appear to be LZW compressed, at least the vb.net code at http://www.shikadi.net/moddingwiki/LZW_Compression won't decompress it. It throws an error on the following line: "If ncode = 256 Then Throw New Exception". EDIT: It seems this LZW decompressor is specifically meant for Keen 1-3. Oops.

The vb.net program (source code only although an executable can be provided if requested) which can be downloaded at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwTD43glfuu … ak4xNnp5eEE2S0E can extract each compressed file's data from a *.pea file and display strings extracted from that data when read at 9 bits per byte.

Here is a sample *.pea file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwTD43glfuu … djdTczBGMWxZRFE. It only contains a few *.lbm files. (Not the entire program.)

BTW:
Does any one know of a Windows based file viewer that can also display 9 bit bytes?

It turns out that Cartoon.iea also has compressed data starting at the 11th byte:

1     BLINK = 8 ask$=" " Drive2$  N      if (DosVersion < 200) color 7,0 ls say"Installat  not  mplete!   Carto  s requi  DOS .0   high   "P  e eb  you sy em  a      and try again exi 1 e     

The above data was extracted by assuming nine bits per character (characters with a code outside the range 32-126 have been substituted with a space).

Here is another sample from the file Cartoons.inf (compressed data extracted from Program.pea):

1       X:\CARTOONS\MOVIE DUCK. V      LOST                      \P KPLA                \                    MAGICTR                                       

A program that can be used to view Cartooners' files:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwTD43glfuu … bXcxSG5melpwRE0

A program that can be used to view Cartooners' files:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwTD43glfuu … bXcxSG5melpwRE0

Hi,

is that program still available ?

Thank you,

Lude

Lude wrote:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

A program that can be used to view Cartooners' files:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwTD43glfuu … bXcxSG5melpwRE0

Hi,

is that program still available ?

Thank you,

Lude

Yes, it is. For anyone interested: search vbforums.com for: "Cartooners File Viewer." - I use the same username there as on this board.

EDIT:
Updated the part mentioning where my program can be found...