PAK (ARC extension)

File Format
Name	PAK (ARC extension)
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Archiving PAK (ARC extension)
Extension(s)	.pak, .sdn
Released	1988

PAK is a DOS utility for managing compressed archive files, developed by NoGate Consulting. It is also the name of one of the file formats it supports: .PAK format.

PAK format is an extension of ARC format. The differences are that it may use some PAK-specific compression methods (#10 "crushed", and #11 "distilled"), and that it has some features made possible by "extended records" stored after the end-of-archive marker.

PAK was originally named GSARC (and used filename extension .ARC), but was quickly renamed to PAK (and the default extension changed to .PAK).

See ARC for more information relevant to PAK format. See also SDN (SDN Project).

Disambiguation

See PAK for more formats named PAK.

Specifications

The PAK.DOC file contained in the v2.51 distribution includes basic information about .PAK/.ARC format, including the extended records. It does not document the compression schemes in detail.

Software

• GSARC v1.0 (1988-10-13) (DOS binary)
• PAK (DOS binaries)
  • v1.0 (1988-10-17)
  • v1.6 (1989-01-24)
  • v2.10 (1989-08-10)
  • v2.50 (1990-09-20)
  • v2.51 (1990-10-08)
    • Another copy, packaged differently
• The Unarchiver - Supports the PAK-specific compression schemes

Sample files

• ARC2PAK1.PAK