Sbi & Plain File Differences

[I.M. Weasel]

I can't find this anywhere, but are there any differences in the programs binary in sbi files and plain files? The sbi bin is unscrambled, and the plain files(selfbooting) is scrambled. Am I right on this?

[DCDayDreamer]

I can't find this anywhere, but are there any differences in the programs binary in sbi files and plain files? The sbi bin is unscrambled, and the plain files(selfbooting) is scrambled. Am I right on this?

It depends how the plainfiles were originally released, sometimes plainfiles are released as unscrambled, sometimes scrambled ready to make a selfbooting CD. The only real difference is the plainfiles are packaged into an SBI file for ease of use in compilations via Dream Inducer, and the files need to be unscrambled for Dream Inducer to boot them.

[I.M. Weasel]

Is there a way to check whether the files are scrambled or unscrambled, without doing anything with them? or will scrambling an already scrambled bin mess it up?

[DCDayDreamer]

Is there a way to check whether the files are scrambled or unscrambled, without doing anything with them? or will scrambling an already scrambled bin mess it up?

There's a few apps around to check binary files (scrambling an already scrambled bin will render it useless by the way), fackue's Bin Checker is useful:

Bin Checker

BootDreams (also by fackue) checks the binaries too:

BootDreams

[curt_grymala]

Unfortunately, I think all of the apps available to check the bins run on Windows. I'm not sure if any of them are available for Mac or not.

IIRC, it's possible (though not always 100% reliable) to open the bins in a hex editor and look for plain text inside of the file. If you find a good amount of readable text in the file, it most likely is unscrambled.

Also - when it came to plain file packages, the majority of the time, if the file was called 1stread.bin, that meant it was scrambled. If it had a more descriptive name, it was most likely unscrambled.

There were a few old packages that didn't keep with that standard, but that's usually the way it was done.