What file type starts with BOSS 7?

Question

I am looking at some files generated in the early 90s. One of them seems to hold references to data packed in some binary format in a number of large files.

The first six bytes of the file are 0x42 0x4f 0x53 0x53 0x20 0x37 which spells BOSS 7.

My searches of various sources of file type information, including /usr/share/file/magic have not turned up anything. Does anyone know what software might have been used to generate files that start with these bytes? Any information on file layout would be great.

Answer 1

It looks like the file might have been generated by VisualWorks Smalltalk:

[BOSS 7.5]

Contains the Binary Object Streaming Service, which supports efficient storage and retrieval of objects, including code, to and from files.

Note that for code storage, the parcel system now supercedes BOSS.

I tried to load the file using the IDE provided at http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/ and it generated a meaningful exception:

The identifier MediaCollectionDictionary has no binding

The file does contain:

    MediaCollectionDictionary
    MediaCollection*
    CallMediaVehDict2

etc which means, if I could now figure out what the rest of the files do and learn enough SmallTalk, I could disentangle this mess.

Of course, I am not sure if this analysis is correct. So, please if you have any other ideas, let me know. Thank you.

Much later: So, my initial assessment seems to be correct. I got some useful tips on comp.lang.smalltalk: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.smalltalk/browse_thread/thread/5d55d857e2f80158#

Answer 2

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