PUT

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File Format
Name PUT
Ontology
Extension(s) .put, .ins
Released 1993
For another "PUT" format, see PUT and GET (Scott Jennings).

PUT is a shareware archiver/compressor for DOS that produces files with the suffix ".put" (".PUT", using proper DOS naming conventions). The decompressor is called GET. PUT was made by a company called "MicroFox", which seems to have consisted of a single person, Jim Haas.[1]

PUT files with an .INS extension are treated specially by the "INSTALL" program that is used by, and distributed with, some versions of PUT/GET.

Contents

Discussion

The earliest known version of the software is 1.00, apparently released in early 1993. Technically, the file format used by v1.00, LHarc format, was released around 1989. Confusing the matter further is that the software has copyright dates like "1990-1993", implying that there might have been versions before 1.00. But no good evidence of such versions has been found.

Format details

Official documentation of .PUT format is lacking, but it's clearly a variant of LHA, and in some cases identical to LHA.

Some versions (1.00, 2.00, 3.10) seem to use standard LHA format. Others (2.20, 3.41+) use a variant in which the 'h' in the compression ID field is changed to a capital 'Z'. If there are any other differences, they must be subtle. PUT has been observed to use methods 'lZ0', 'lZ1', and 'lZ5'.

Identification

Some .PUT files can't be distinguished from LHA format - see LHA#Identification.

Those that can have bytes '-' 'l' 'Z' ?? '-' at offset 2, where the ?? byte is '0', '1', or '5'.

Software

Sample files

Links

References

  1. https://archive.org/download/msdos_festival_PUT345/PUT345.ZIP → PUT.DOC
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