Compact Pro

Compact Pro (originally named Compactor) was an archiver for the Mac platform in the 1990s, competing with StuffIt. A PC version called ExtractorPC was also released.

Compact Pro could decode BinHex, split archives over multiple floppy disks, and display text or images when an archive was opened. It was also able to produce self-extracting archives, which were saved with a .sea extension.

When attempting to obtain Compact Pro, be sure you don't mistakenly end up with a makeup organizer, a cultivator, or a lawnmower.

File Identification

 * The only magic number in a Compact Pro file header is the first byte . The rest is offsets for the file directory and data, along with CRC-32 values.
 * The type code is, and the creator code is  which sometimes can be found in the file if the file has been encoded as a MacBinary file.

Software

 * The Unarchiver
 * macutil

Sample files

 * http://cd.textfiles.com/garbo/MAC/ → .../*.CPT

Links

 * Wikipedia article
 * Official site (no longer supported; not OS X compatible)
 * Compact Pro Users Guide
 * Compact Pro Header Information