AIN
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.
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AINEXE
AIN also includes an executable compression utility named AINEXE. It compresses MS-DOS EXE files.
Self-extracting archives
Some versions support self-extracting archives, in DOS EXE format.
Version 2.23: The distribution includes an AINSFX.EXE file, which seems to be undocumented, but can be prepended to an AIN archive to create a self-extracting archive.
Version 2.32: The included AINEXT.EXE extraction utility doubles as the self-extractor module. You can prepend it to an AIN archive to create a self-extracting archive. Or you can use AIN's -e option to create a self-extracting archive instead of an .AIN archive (this requires that AINEXT.EXE be present). Note that AINEXT.EXE may report its version number to be 2.31.
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]
- AIN 2.2[1994-07-01, English]
- 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 - Includes v2.22, and a v2.1 demo.
- AINEXT - Official extract-only utility, sometimes distributed separately.
