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Geek Culture / Win 3.1 emulating?

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Homey the Clown
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 17:59
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Ok so I have this program that was created way back in the windows 3.1 age (like 15 years ago) and it contains like 16 floppy disks. Each disk has a folder and a file with extensions such as .001, .002, etc. (representing the disk number). disk0 has PKUNZIP.exe, RESTORE.exe, and INSTALL.bat. this isn't something i can just do on command prompt because whenever i run the batch file, it calls commands that command prompt doesnt understand (im running xp fyi). so where do i start? I try to unzip the pkunzip executable because i am almost positive that it is compressed along with the other disks with the funky extensions. what program could i use to get this thing to work? im thinking it might be easier to unzip the executable and then run the program on a MS-DOS emulator or something...

- Homey


If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 19:39
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i bet if you unpack all the files to the same directory, and try to unzip with winrar, it might just unpack...

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Homey the Clown
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 19:46
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hmmm...well the pkunzip is an executable so i cant exactly see what its holding but i honestly think that it is a windows console application (being that this is windows 3.1 and everything ran off of DOS). that being said, i think the executable just does a few commands to windows that uncompresses the files or does something with them. i'll attach a few images to show what i mean.


If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0.
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Homey the Clown
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 19:50 Edited at: 24th Dec 2008 19:52
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this is the folder i put everything into after copying all data all 16 disks. (sorry i have two screens hooked up so thats why the image is so wide)


If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0.

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Homey the Clown
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 19:54
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disk0 contains all the install stuff.


If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0.

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Homey the Clown
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 19:56
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disk1-disk15 contains a control and backupfile in the file format ranging from .001 - .015 representing the disk number.


If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 21:39
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Ok. pkunzip is similar to winzip, it will uncompress the files. It's command line based, so you may have a tough time with it. That's why I say, download and install winrar.

Then move the contents of all 15 disks into one big directory.

Right click on the first file in disk one, then unzip it with winrar, if you're lucky, winrar will be able to extract it, along with all 15 of the other disks.

If that fails, try running pkunzip and see if you can get all the files extracted.

Once extracted, you'll probably have the full program, or an installer with all the needed files in one folder. You can run it and see what happens.

The batch files probably just auto-run pkunzip to unzip the packages. Open the two batch files in notepad and let us know what the text is.

"I acctually quite like this site. And noone will know because this is a secret..." - Anonymous
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zenassem
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Posted: 24th Dec 2008 22:49 Edited at: 24th Dec 2008 22:55
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Just get http://www.dosbox.com

unless it's an actual windows app?

If it is a windows app, you should be able to run it in compatabilty mode (win 95) under xp. Although win 3.1 was 16 bit as opposed to xp's 32 bit 95% of 3.1 softare will work under xp.

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Homey the Clown
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Posted: 29th Dec 2008 17:43
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I used winrar but it identifies it as a standalone executable and refuses to extract it. the install.bat files reads in as a bunch of command prompt commands that makes directories, copies them, yadda yadda. the gaslif-1.bat shows nothing in notepad which could be a problem... Well i guess i will look into it later on but thanks for the help.


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