encoding wtlibrary

DannyBloem

Hello,

Is there somebody who knows how to read the data from the Watchtower library CD's? I have encoded the data from the cd's of older age (watchtower library cd until 1999), but the newer use a different code. Anyone any idea?
Thanks

tetrapod.sapien

how did you encode the older data, and why do you want it if you have the newer data anyways? are you trying to run a comparison of the two sets?

IP_SEC

First you must use MEPS to insipulate the data sets into redundant arrays of spent nutrient pellets. This encryption makes it possible to extrapolate the truncated symbols into the appropriate waste managment orifice

Euphemism

ROFL IP_SEC! That is classic!

stillajwexelder

if you need some specific I will post it for you

observador

From your post, I understand that you need to DECODE the data?

Don't know how to do it, but it'd be interesting to know. If you find that out please let us know...

IT Support

I'd suggest having a poke around some of the .dlls in <drive:>\Program Files\Watchtower\MEPSCommon.

I vaguely recall being told the routines are all there to read the data files.

Sorry I don't know any more, but I hope it helps.

DannyBloem

Thank you for your comments. I do not want to make a comparison with the two dataset because I am pretty sure they are not changes. I decoded the older versions just by looking at the data and writing a program that could decode it. It was not very easy but possible. There was some encryption, but simple more to save (a little) space. Like letters that are frequent have a single code.
The newer version is probably more compact and uses maybe Huffman codes.
I like to read the data to be able to use it in my own applications. (Yes I know they are not happy with that maybe)

Thank you also for your offer to send me some data, but I do not need something specific; I need the whole data set.

I will take a look at the DLL's somebody mentioned, but have little hope.

tetrapod.sapien

here is a link on how to get WT library running on linux:

http://bipolar.longbros.com/?p=48

you might just want to see how it works with Wine. not sure if this will help you with decoding.

good luck

IT Support

Danny,

I was told that you simply need to make a call to a routine in one of the .dlls and that will 'unpack' the data. There's no need to 'reinvent the wheel'!

What became WT Library was initially just for internal use in Brooklyn, then the branches wanted it too, and so it spread. Originally the publication files were just copied over from the MEPS server to an internal file server for general use and a guy in the computer department wrote a front end with search and display functions.

The MEPS-formatted document files were compressed and did not contain any graphics because they had to be compact for sending to the branches via the WT's closed user group on Compuserve, and, of course, at that time the branches only had 56k (at best!) dialup internet access. (That's one of the reasons why WT Library doesn't have any illustrations or photos.)

So, when WT Library was prepared for distribution, it was a relatively straightforward job of tarting up the user interface and copying over the MEPS publication files. Extracting, of course, those that WT felt were too 'sensitive' for the rank and file, like the Pay Attention book and the Organization book, etc.

The irony is that some years ago Brooklyn decided MEPS was too expensive to maintain, abandoned the whole project and moved over to a commercial software package (I don't now remember which one). So this may have something to do with the change in data format that you mention you've noticed on more recent WT Library releases.

However, if you have Visual Studio, it should be fairly easy to discover which routines in which .dlls are being called when you run wtlib.exe. Then you can just call these same routines from your own program.

encoding wtlibrary

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