IBM BOOK format: Difference between revisions

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'''IBM BookManager Softcopy''' is IBM's legacy online documentation system, created in the 1980s. It was historically used mostly on mainframes, midrange (AS/400) and OS/2, although it also saw some use in other areas including AIX.
IBM BookManager is IBM's legacy online documentation system, historically used mostly on mainframes, midrange (AS/400) and OS/2, although it also saw some use in other areas including AIX. IBM no longer uses it for documenting current versions of its products, but there is an immense quantity of surviving electronic documentation from the period when IBM actively used it (from the 1990s thru 2010s), particularly documentation CD-ROMs/DVD-ROMs and images thereof.


The standard extension is BOO. No public documentation is known to be available for it. The header of BOO files commonly contains an EBCDIC copyright notice (this is true even for books for ASCII-based platforms such as OS/2). The file contents is almost certainly also in EBCDIC, but is not readable beyond the header. Maybe it is compressed with unknown compression algorithms (a relative of IBM's well-known proprietary algorithms such as TERSE?). However, the data seems too repetitive to be compressed–possibly it is just some obfuscation mechanism then?
IBM no longer uses it for new documentations of its products, but there is an immense quantity of legacy electronic documentation from the period when IBM actively used it (from the 1980s thru 2010s), particularly documentation CD-ROMs/DVD-ROMs and images thereof.


https://github.com/kev009/boo2pdf is code to convert BOO files to PDF. However, it relies on using the IBM SoftCopy Reader (for 32-bit Linux)'s JAR files and native code libraries (.so files) to actually read the file. The author of that code previously hosted a free public web service for that conversion, but discontinued it.
The file-internal style (?) format apparently is called IBMIDDOC.


Versions of IBM's SoftCopy Reader (previously known as IBM Library Reader and before that IBM BookManager READ) also existed for Windows, AIX (any other commercial Unix systems?), OS/2, DOS (meaning PC-DOS/MS-DOS, not mainframe DOS), MVS (later known as OS/390 then z/OS), VM/CMS (later known as z/VM), and OS/400 (later IBM i5/OS and then IBM i)–but apparently *not* mainframe DOS (DOS/360, DOS/VS, DOS/VSE, z/VSE).  
The standard DOS style extension is <code>BOO</code>, and "application/book" is sometimes used as MIME type, but was never officially registered.


"application/book" is sometimes used as a MIME type but was never officially registered
== Internal structure ==
The internal structure is fully documented as a part of the ''Geist'' reference implementation on GitHub.


== Notes on file format ==
== See also ==
* [[Reviving InfoSeeker]]


* Bytes 1-2: unknown 2 bytes probably flags. second byte never zero, first byte often is (but not always). probably not a size, since 0001 is a common value.
== Weblinks ==
* Bytes 3-6: these 4 bytes appear to always be zero
* [https://github.com/cyberdotgent/geist Geist IBM Book format reference implementation]
* Bytes 7: unknown, can be zero, probably more flags???
** [https://github.com/cyberdotgent/geist/tree/main/doc/boo-spec Geist Book format documentation]
Bytes 8+: EBCDIC copyright string. Can start with one or more EBCDIC spaces (0x40), sometimes also (0xB4) (some kind of control character?)
* [http://www.edm2.com/index.php/BookManager BookManager Releases] contains history of IBM BookManager releases
* [https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/using-pdfs-and-bookmanager-books-your-workstation-or-mainframe Using PDFs and BookManager Books on your workstation or mainframe], IBM.com
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terse_(file_format) Terse (file format)], Wikipedia
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ77_and_LZ78 LZ77 and LZ78] compression algorithms, Wikipedia
* [https://patents.google.com/patent/US4814746A/en?oq=4814746 Data compression method] for TERSE, patents.google.com
* [http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/ZIP ZIP archive file format], archiveteam.org, mentions TERSE.
* [https://hercules-390.yahoogroups.narkive.com/gYwJ3QUu/terse-for-pcs-windows-aix-linux terse for PCs (Windows, AIX, Linux ....)], hercules-390@yahoogroups.com
* [https://bit.listserv.ibm-main.narkive.com/82nDDwrh/trsmain-question TRSMAIN question], IBM-Main mailing list
* [https://share.confex.com/share/121/webprogram/Handout/Session14242/14242-%20zOS%20Documentation%20Search%20Strategies%20%28Final%20Edition%29.pdf 14242: z/OS Documentation Search Strategies], presentation slides in PDF format


The header is 256 bytes long. The copyright string is padded to the end of the header with 0x40 (EBCDIC space). However, it seems to have a null terminator (0x00) at the end of the actual text, before the space padding.
== Footnotes ==
<references />


What follows from 256 bytes onwards looks like it could be some kind of compression dictionary???? Not clear.
[[Category: System Internals]]
 
It looks like the file is composed of 256 byte records (so file size should be an integer multiple of 256), often with some all-zeros records appended to the end.
 
== External links ==
* http://www.edm2.com/index.php/BookManager – contains history of IBM BookManager releases

Latest revision as of 10:57, 10 September 2026

IBM BookManager Softcopy is IBM's legacy online documentation system, created in the 1980s. It was historically used mostly on mainframes, midrange (AS/400) and OS/2, although it also saw some use in other areas including AIX.

IBM no longer uses it for new documentations of its products, but there is an immense quantity of legacy electronic documentation from the period when IBM actively used it (from the 1980s thru 2010s), particularly documentation CD-ROMs/DVD-ROMs and images thereof.

The file-internal style (?) format apparently is called IBMIDDOC.

The standard DOS style extension is BOO, and "application/book" is sometimes used as MIME type, but was never officially registered.

Internal structure

The internal structure is fully documented as a part of the Geist reference implementation on GitHub.

See also

Weblinks

Footnotes

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