QIP (Quarterdeck)

QIP is a compressed archive format used by Quarterdeck for software installation. It was used by, for example, some versions of QEMM and DESQview. It uses PKWARE DCL Implode compression.

There are at least two versions of the format.

Identification
Old format files start with ASCII "", possibly always followed by bytes, and probably always have   at offset 8. The first DCL Implode header is at offset 32; refer to PKWARE DCL Implode.

New format files start with ASCII "". Known files all have bytes at offset 8; the first byte or two of this might be a format version number. " " appears at the offset given by the 4-byte integer at offset 16.

Sample files

 * QDPMI Host V1.0
 * DESQview/386 2.6
 * GameRunner 3.0
 * QEMM 8.01 (German)
 * QEMM386 6.0 (old format)
 * https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/archive/quarterdeckInstallationPacakge/
 * https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/archive/quarterdeckInstallationPacakge/

Links

 * Quarterdeck Office Systems