AIN

File Format
Name	AIN
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Archiving AIN
Extension(s)	.ain
Released	≤1993

AIN is a compressed archive format, produced by a DOS shareware program of the same name. It was developed by InfoService Ltd., later Transas Marine Ltd.

AINEXE

AIN also includes an executable compression utility named AINEXE. It compresses MS-DOS EXE files.

Self-extracting archives

(TODO)

Notes

The documentation says "AIN version 2.2 archive format is incompatible with that of AIN version 2.0." But, no versions before 2.1 have been found.

Identification

At least some .AIN files start with the byte sequence (hex) 21 ?? 00 00 00 00 00 00.

AINEXE-compressed EXE files most likely have ASCII "AIN" at offset 32.

Software

• AIN
  • AIN 2.1[1993-07-14]: Ultimate collection 95 → UTIL_/AIN.EXE
  • AIN 2.2[1993-10-13, Russian]: FTP mirror - fidonet.org.ua - 2015-02-12 → fidonet.org.ua/pub/arcers/ain.arj
  • AIN 2.2[1993-12-10, English]: [1]
  • AIN 2.2[1994-07-01, English]: [2]
  • AIN 2.23: DP TOOL CLUB CD ASCQ → CD_ASCQ_28_030496.iso → DOS/TOOLS/AIN223.ZIP
  • AIN 2.32
  • Various versions at old-dos.ru

• AINEXT - Official extract-only utility, sometimes distributed separately.
  • Various versions at old-dos.ru

Sample files

• https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/archive/ain/