On Friday I bought the book Windows(TM) Undocumented File Formats, by Pete Davis and Mike Wallace. The reason I got it was for the PIF file format, which is described therein. I have quickly thrown together a program in Arev in an attempt to follow the text and discern the PIF layout. Following is a copy of the program.

* LAYOUT GLEANED FROM "WINDOWS(TM) UNDOCUMENTED FILE FORMATS

* BY PETE DAVIS AND MIKE WALLACE

* CONVERTED TO AREV FORMAT BY VICTOR ENGEL

*

* Save this program to a file and compile

* Run using the syntax RUN file prog pif_path

* where pif_path is the 8.3 convention file name for the pif file

*

* Note: This program is for educational purposes only. Use at

* your own risk. Verification of the performance of this program

* is the responsibility of the user. Of particular note is the 386

* flags section, whose values seem to have the opposite value as

* expected.

*

PIFNAME=@SENTENCE-1,'B '

PIFREC =XLATE('DOS',PIFNAME,'','X')

IF LEN(PIFREC) ELSE

   CALL MSG('PIF FILE NOT FOUND')

   STOP

END

@VIEW.MODE=1

CALL INIT.VIEW(100)

PAGE

PRINT 'CHECKSUM       :':SEQ(PIFREC2,1)

PRINT 'TITLE          :':PIFREC3,301,\00\

PRINT 'MAX MEM        :':256*SEQ(PIFREC34,1) + SEQ(PIFREC33,1):'K'

PRINT 'MIN MEM        :':256*SEQ(PIFREC36,1) + SEQ(PIFREC35,1):'K'

PRINT 'PROG PATH      :':PIFREC37,631,\00\

CLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE=PIFREC100,1

BCLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE=OCONV(SEQ(CLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE),'MB')

PRINT 'DIRECT COM1    :':BCLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE1,1

PRINT 'DIRECT COM2    :':BCLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE2,1

PRINT 'CLOSE ON EXIT  :':BCLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE4,1

PRINT 'NO SCR EXCHANGE:':BCLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE5,1

PRINT 'PREVENT SWITCH :':BCLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE6,1

PRINT 'GRAPHICS       :':BCLOSE_ON_EXIT_BYTE7,1

PRINT 'DEF_DRV        :':PIFREC101,1

PRINT 'START DIR      :':PIFREC102,641,\00\

PRINT 'PARAMETERS     :':PIFREC166,641,\00\

PRINT 'INIT SCREEN MD :':SEQ(PIFREC230,1)

PRINT 'ROWS           :':SEQ(PIFREC234,1)

PRINT 'COLUMNS        :':SEQ(PIFREC235,1)

PRINT 'WINDOW POS ROW :':SEQ(PIFREC236,1)

PRINT 'WINDOW POS COL :':SEQ(PIFREC237,1)

PRINT 'SYS MEMORY     :':SEQ(PIFREC238,1)

PRINT 'SHARED PROGNAME:':PIFREC239,641,\00\

PRINT 'SHARED DATAFILE:':PIFREC303,641,\00\

PRINT 'DIRECT KEYBD   :':SEQ(PIFREC368,1)

NEXT_HEADER_CHAR=PIFREC386,2

LOOP

UNTIL NEXT_HEADER_CHAR=\FFFF\

   NEXT_HEADER_POS=SEQ(NEXT_HEADER_CHAR1,1) + 256 * SEQ(NEXT_HEADER_CHAR2,1) + 1

   PRINT 'NEXT HEADER POS:':NEXT_HEADER_POS

   SECTION_NAME=PIFRECNEXT_HEADER_POS,161,\00\

   DATSIZE=SEQ(PIFRECNEXT_HEADER_POS+20,1) + 256 * SEQ(PIFRECNEXT_HEADER_POS+21,1)

   PRINT 'DATA SIZE      :':DATSIZE

   PRINT 'SECTION        :':SECTION_NAME

   BEGIN CASE

   CASE SECTION_NAME=WINDOWS 386 3.0'

      SECTION=PIFRECNEXT_HEADER_POS+22,DATSIZE

      PRINT 'MEMORY LIMIT   :':SEQ(SECTION1,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION2,1)

      PRINT "MEMORY REQUIRED:":SEQ(SECTION3,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION4,1)

      PRINT "FOREGROUND PRI :":SEQ(SECTION5,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION6,1)

      PRINT "BACKGROUND PRI :":SEQ(SECTION7,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION8,1)

      PRINT "EMS MAX.       :":SEQ(SECTION9,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION10,1)

      PRINT "EMS MIN.       :":SEQ(SECTION11,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION12,1)

      PRINT "XMS MAX.       :":SEQ(SECTION13,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION14,1)

      PRINT "XMS MIN.       :":SEQ(SECTION15,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION16,1)

      FLAGS386=SECTION17,2

      FLAGS386=OCONV(SEQ(FLAGS3861,1) + 256 * SEQ(FLAGS3862,1),'MB') "R(0)#16"

      PRINT "EMS LOCKED     :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3861,1),'B')

      *PRINT "UNUSED         :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3862,1),'B')

      PRINT "USES HMS       :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3863,1),'B')

      PRINT "DETECT IDLE    :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3864,1),'B')

      PRINT "CONTROL ESCAPE :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3865,1),'B')

      PRINT "PRINTSCREEN    :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3866,1),'B')

      PRINT "ALT-PRTSCRN    :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3867,1),'B')

      PRINT "ALT-ENTER      :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3868,1),'B')

      PRINT "ALT-SPACE      :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3869,1),'B')

      PRINT "ALT-ESCAPE     :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38610,1),'B')

      PRINT "ALT-TAB        :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38611,1),'B')

      *PRINT "UNUSED         :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38612,1),'B')

      PRINT "FULLSCREEN     :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38613,1),'B')

      PRINT "EXCLUSIVE      :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38614,1),'B')

      PRINT "BACKGROUND     :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38615,1),'B')

      PRINT "CLOSE IF ACTIVE:":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38616,1),'B')

      *PRINT '386 FLAGS      :':FLAGS386

      FLAGSXMS=SECTION19,2

      FLAGSXMS=OCONV(SEQ(FLAGSXMS1,1) + 256 * SEQ(FLAGSXMS2,1),'MB') "R(0)#16"

      PRINT "LOCK APP MEM   :":OCONV(FLAGSXMS14,1,'B')

      PRINT "ALLOW PASTPASTE:":OCONV(FLAGSXMS15,1,'B')

      PRINT "XMS LOCKED     :":OCONV(FLAGSXMS16,1,'B')

      *PRINT 'XMS FLAGS      :':FLAGSXMS

      FLAGSVID=SECTION21,2

      FLAGSVID=OCONV(SEQ(FLAGSVID1,1) + 256 * SEQ(FLAGSVID2,1),'MB') "R(0)#16"

      PRINT "RETAIN VIDEO   :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS3869,1),'B')

      PRINT "INITMODEHIGH   :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38610,1),'B')

      PRINT "INITMODELO     :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38611,1),'B')

      PRINT "INITMODETEXT   :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38612,1),'B')

      PRINT "MONITORHIGH    :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38613,1),'B')

      PRINT "MONITORLO      :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38614,1),'B')

      PRINT "MONITORTEXT    :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38615,1),'B')

      PRINT "EMULATETEXT    :":OCONV(NOT(FLAGS38616,1),'B')

      *PRINT 'VID FLAGS      :':FLAGSVID

      PRINT "HOTKEY SCAN    :":SEQ(SECTION25,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION26,1)

      PRINT "HOTKEY STATE   :":SEQ(SECTION27,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION28,1)

      PRINT "HOTKEY FLAG    :":SEQ(SECTION29,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION30,1)

      PRINT "HK NUMERIC KEY :":SEQ(SECTION31,1) + 256 * SEQ(SECTION32,1)

   CASE SECTION_NAME=WINDOWS 286 3.0'

   CASE 1

      PRINT 'UNKNOWN SECTION TYPE'

   END CASE

   NEXT_HEADER_CHAR=PIFRECNEXT_HEADER_POS+16,2

REPEAT

I guess you can tell by the code that it is known there is more to the layout than this, but this is all I saw that is relevant to Arev and that is actually documented. There is also a VMM section that probably would be relevant, but that section is not documented.

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