older files from 1996

[jv58]

Re: older files from 1996

Tried the text editor route. The eps files are toast, in my opinion. I have opened many eps files in a text editor and there will always be certain header info identifying it as an eps and where created. I see none that. Maybe what you have is the resource fork without the data fork? No clue on the 4th unidentified file.

 

[michaelejahn]

Re: older files from 1996

Yes, this is binary data, and (as you suspected) is probably only the data fork (and you are missing the recource fork) of the original file, so, you are hosed...

Illustrator "3" - wow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Illustrator

so, this is the small amount of binary from Wheat.eps..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fg<µU\½ä—jóí5´Næ¥&ÏÖjË©gŠÑòÛÝ@dn<¾õ®œ¯9/ãé².us¼êßU+¸WtmÔ=o]¯sÍWtKÝžø·oƒö÷|Ìé;¡í®gãÌîçW}ÞrÄ{Î|ÁÏ"׶l#¾UsŽ_[+*ºÙ݃Ýé<_Ç*øÏcµ<üÁm­È¶Ë”êêåö7´’÷sêó¸=»õíñËÕVµé+Âk{£Û7äVŸ,}|yzŸ#ý;ü<ë÷ÞZ™{¢Õïq=•ç9²à>¼ŽªµŒîºó®–Û½¼ùó×/Þ抿-“­‡/yú·x«Çâóå<¯CWˆ²<ª½WÊ^ëõçŒVµÏæyã5ߪ|«ç¨Ëç­*ÙUܼååÎm©ËòÝð=òq¼såô/Ú·›óÅc`sÕŽ¢5]Â<’ðFåtW¸/Qh+sÕë)÷üÔð=¿
ΞŽñx#§ÑVày_ö*«/=ÑiªøO]"Éë–k:¼L}„Æ^O*=ÁÉ„ËÐÑÔ÷È<-ò §^½ÁëÁ9ðZa¡è:åðô[8zxܾ=V´=˜=œ={gW‰Ñë‡iÁëÚ½8y&\;N/XÖ¾/‚«^Ú<×ÁÌöÓ¹àïz­óúð9š„wpsÇ8êÞVXå¬ëgkÕUãžN£r•Öµ+ã¬j6–õ/–pZ¶~.¢gU¬ÇÔ´ë!ñÔö¼;œKe¯Éà/eê6ú‡±k‚¾_J/®Ÿ:Þw–Õ½Aʶ…ewiÏ´ªµr:Õî¡l®ùUž+ξ¯WIZëÖ…ëV×õÜëÕzœó²m²çvó¾m¬>×´–Û<ÒÑ,êêã¹c­‡[–†“º‚ë×·mÞN¶d«ÒE®ê…ÖÖ>[Ю˜wYYÖº6-èë\:ÙÑ%·ÓÊ}xU½/•ð>89zk¨çgÒPêà[zµ®°êáÎF®Œ;ÊðW]GwèêñàÑèµÊ®pç\5µjÛ‹Ï*-Qíu¯ï?¥”6ŒÜêõãÏW«Ç‹Cªð9íSKUW,¹ãòUWãX¶·-•Ü7.g—«×åÝ"Ï–õrú¯÷kñÞ{å[êÙß9WÌ¿Ý~¼_³£½ÿÄåêñ||î_ãßoĶOÀ@,X°¢Ðˆˆ‰R* (€P @«Í T «â @õ U% "¡

* ®`\¸®`[~EPSFART3
ñ

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

well, that - in Ascii is;

010001100110011100111100101101010101010101011100101111011110010001101010
1111001111101101001101011011010001001110111001101010010100100110
110011111101011001101010110010111010100101100111110100011111001011011011
1101110101000000011001000110111000111100101111101111010110101110
10101111001110010010111111100011111010011011001000101110011101010111001110111100
111010101101111101010101001010111011100001010111011101000110110111010100
001111010110111101011101101011110111001111001101010101110111010001001011
1101110111111000101101110110111111110110111101110111110011001100
1110100100111011101000011110110110101110011001111110001111001100
111011101110011101010111011111011101111001110010110001000111101111001110
011111001100000111001111001000101101011110110110011011000010001110111110
010101010111001101011111010110110010101100101010101110101101100111011101
1101110111101001001111000101111111000111001010101111100011001111
011000111011010100111100110000010110110110101101110010001011011011001011
111010101110101011100101111101100011011110110100
11110111011100111110101011110011101110000011110110111011111101011110110111110001
1100101111010101010101101011010111101001001010111100001001101011
011110111010001111011011001101111110010001010110001011000111110101111100
011110010111101000100011111111010011101100111100
1110101111110111110111100101101001111011101000101101010111101111
0111000100111101111001110011100110110010111000000011111010111100
10101010101101011110111010111010
111100111010111011011011101111011011110011111001
111100111101011100101111110111101110011010111111
00101101101011010010111101111001111110101011011101111000
1010101111000111111000101111001111100101001111001010111101000011
010101111011001000111100101010101011110101010111110010100101111011101011
1111010111100111010101101011010111001111111001100111100111100011
001101011101111110101010011111001010101111100111101001111100101111100111
1010110100101010110110010101010111011100101111001110010111100101
1100111001101101101010011100101111110010110111011111000000111101
111100100111000110111100011100111110010111110100001011111101101010110111
111100111100010101100011011000000111001111010101
1010001000110101010111011100001000111100111100000100011011100101
011101000101011110111000001011110101000101101000001010110111001111010101
11101011001010011111011111010100111100000011110110111111
11001110111100010111100000100011101001111101000101010110
111000000111100101011111111101100010101010101011001011110011110111010001
0110100110101010111110000100111101011101001000101100100111101011
011010110011101010111100010011000111110111000110
010111100100111100101010001111011100000111001001110010111101000011010001
1101010011110111110010000011110000101101111100101010011101011110
10111101110000011110101111000001001110011111000001011010011000011010000111101000
001110101110010111110000111101000101101100111000011110100111100011011100
1011111000111101010101101011010000111101001111010011110101111011
01100111010101111101000111101011011010011100000111101011
1101101010111101001110000111100100100110010111000011101101001110
0010111101011000110101101011111000101111101010110101111011011010
00111100110101111100000111001100111101101101001110111001111000001110111101111010
10101101111100111111101011110000001110010111011101110000
011100111100011100111000111010101101111001010110010110001110010110101100
1110101101100111011010111101010101010101111000110100111010100011
011100101101011010110101001010111110001110101100
01101010001101101111010100101111011100000101101010110110
0111111000101110101000100110011101010101101011001100011111010100
101101001110101100100001111100011101010011110110101111000011101101001011
011001011010111111001001111000000010111101100101111010100011011011111010
10110001011010111011111001011111010010100010111110101110
00111010110111100111011111010101101111010100000111001010
1011011001100101011101110110100111001111101101001010101010110101
011100100011101011010101111011101010000101101100101011101111100101010101
001010111100111010111110101011110101011101001001010110101110101111010110
1110101101010110110101111111010111011100111010111101010101111010
1111001110110010011011011011001011100111011101101111001110111110
0110110110101100001111101101011110110100110110110011110011010010
1101000100101100111010101110101011100011101110010110001110101101
0101101110111010111010111101011110110111
011011011101111001001110101101100110010010101011110100100100010110101110
1110101011010110110101100011111001011011110100001010111001110111
01011001010110011101011010111010001101100010110111101000111010110101110000111010
110110011101000100100101101101111101001111001010011111010111100001010101
1011110100101111111100000011111000111000001110010111101001101011
101001111110011101100111110100100101000011101010111000000101101101111010
1011010110101110101100001110101011100001110011100100011010101110
001110111100101011110000010101110101110101000111011101111110100011101010
11110001111000001101000111101000101101011100101010101110011100001110011101011100
001101011011010101101010110110111100111100101010001011010101000111101101
0111010110101111111011110011111110100101
001101101101110011101010111101011110001111001111
010101111010101111000111010000111010101011110000001110011110110101010011
010010110101010101010111001011001011100111100011111100100101010101010111
111000110101100010110110101101110010110111011100001101110010111001100111
1010101111010111111001011101110100100010110011111111010101110010
11111010101011111111011101101011111100011101111001111011111001010101101111101010
11011001110111110011100101010111110011001011111111011101011111101011110001011111
101100111010001110111101111111111100010011100101111010101111000101111100
0111110011101110010111111110001111011111011011111100010010110110
01001111110000000100000000101100010110001011000010100010
11010000010100100010101000100000
001000000010000000101000100000000101000000100000010000001010101111001101
00100000010101000010000000100000101010111110001000100000001000000100000011110101
0010000000100000010101010010010100100000001000000010001010100001

 

[big3b69]

Re: older files from 1996

Thanks for trying everyone, I really appreciate it. I did not realize the files were that old, 1996 does not seam that long ago. Matt

 

[michaelejahn]

Re: older files from 1996

Hi Matt,

It is not that they are that old - they are simply vicum of a bad file exchange or bad cross platform 'Save"

They look like eps previews, as a few others suspected or mentioned - this is normally kept in the resource fork, which of course, needs a data fork (which appreas to be missing...

--. But it is not garbage. Look into the files and you will see a strange signature. All of them has it. Meaning they are not corrupt files.

Files start with hex AB CD and in the first 100 bytes or so has the signature EPSFART3. Could not find any thing other than a few hints that it may be stuffit, but I think the genius mensa winning answer was from Andrew Langridge - these are most likely Acrobat 3 EPS files from a Macintosh, that were copied, transfered or otherwise runied when copied incorrectly to either a PC, over FTP with the wrong settings - you may see if you can find a folder near these files that have a set of files with identical names !


I tried to use stuff it with no success. If that worked it would have meant true eps (not preview) but compressed. This is still a possibility.

Send money if you need further investigation !

LOL

 

[SWTilden]

Re: older files from 1996

Another possibility is to use good ol' Photoshop. It's pretty good at parsing elderly files from errant platforms. From within Photoshop, use File>Open. If it works, of course, it will end up rasterized, not vector, but you can choose a very high resolution if you want.

 

[John W]

Re: older files from 1996

Have you tried to place them as art to see what they are? Say using Indy or Quark or Office or whatever? You might then be able to pdf them. I'd be willing to bet they are open-able. We have eps and ai files going back to Illy 6 and have no probs, ever. Mind you, they are in house files, not files passed through umpteen portals etc.

John W

 

[FKarlone]

Re: older files from 1996

It sounds like they are screened DCS files.
If you can run them trough a rip that makes raster files like Nexus.
Did you try placing them in Illustrator or Art Pro?


Karl Jennex
[email protected]

 

[tcollins]

Re: older files from 1996

Hi Matt
what you can try to do is put a suffix on the end of the name of and try to open it in a program that nows what the suffix is, i.e. eps try to open it with illustrator and photshop or .innd try indesign or .qxd or .qxp and try quark or .tif and try photoshop. This is what we do and 99% of the time we are able to open the file and work on it.

 

[Arnold Roosch]

Re: older files from 1996

At Markzware we get questions like this pretty often and in 90% of the times our preflight application FlightCheck Professional is able to figure out what kind of document it is; PC or Mac. FlightCheck checks for over 50 different file formats so chances it recognizes the file are big. The application goes back 15 years so we are able to recognize pretty old files too. From our website you can download a demo version; I am curious to know if it would have saved you a lot of time knowing the file format. I did read a lot of people on the forum helped you out, but if you like you could also send me a file so I can check the above for you (arnold(at)markzware(dot)nl).

Edited by: Arnold on Jul 23, 2008 2:46 AM

 

[gttom]

Re: older files from 1996

You should have your designer send the files from a Mac, to someone with a Mac, and they should be able to convert it for you.

 

[CuriousG]

Greetings all,

I hate to resurrect such an old topic but I believe I may have a solution for this and wanted to make sure that others who may have had the problem or have the problem in the future can find a solution.

I just experienced the same problem (actually the files were from 1991-1992!). I knew the files were created with Illustrator, but they would not open. I even tried them on an old Mac Powerbook running System 8 with AI3! I took a look at them in a hex editor and found that my files also started with ABCD and had EPSFART3 in them. Searching on EPSF ART3 gave me a link to this post.

What I did notice on my old Mac Powerbook, is that the icons for these files was a little "DD". After some searching, I saw that this was "DiskDoubler" - a program that was used to compress files on older Macs. I remember now that when I created the files, they would not fit on a floppy (they were over 1.5 meg large), so I had to compress them.

After a bit more searching, I found a free app for OSX called "The Unarchiver". I changed the file names to have a ".dd" after them. It decompressed the files and VOILA! I'm able to open them with Preview and Adobe illustrator!

I hope that this information is useful to someone, someday. Or even perhaps the original poster!

Again, apologies for resurrecting such an old thread.

- George

 

[chevalier]

I had GIGs and GIGs of files as old as 1988 a few years ago that I had to bring into the modern realm. 80% of these were disk-double archives. I duplicated the entire directory then went folder by folder undisk-doubling on a PowerMac G3 with OS9. It took weeks of my spare time but in the end most of the files were salvageable. Some files were "hardware key" archived and were forever lost.

Shortly after this problem was resolved we instituted a policy of guaranteeing file integrity and edibility for a maximum of 5 years. If you hadn't made an order of the item in 5 years and it couldn't be retrieved you were charged for redesign. If you had ordered without changes we ate the cost of redesign as a gesture of good will. We also instituted a policy that if a file was edited it was to be brought up to the newest version of software - no matter how painful. We also stopped accepting Freehand files at that point - customers were required convert them to PDF. If any changes needed to be done beyond PitStop capability we rejected the files with correction instructions. You'd be amazed how many people STILL won't let go of Freehand.