I have quite some experience with this:
- I managed to reconstruct the long-lost BookManager Server product for
Linux, allowing you to render them as a CGI-bin. Sadly, this got a DMCA
takedown, however, the work is trivial to reproduce - you have to download
the individual software updates and puzzle them together to get a full-ish
install. You will be missing assets, but you can find them in the Internet
Archive's wayback machine to complete your efforts (eg .GIF files used to
build the UX). You will also have to use ltrace to figure out the last
missing bits since it's a cruft that uses dlopen() creatively. Don't expose
this CGI to the public internet though; just poking at it to get it to work
exposed easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities to get RCX on your machine.
- I also have a S/390 and z14, and the S/390 has the OS/390 version of the
BookManager Server and Reader. You'd have a much better experience using
that one imho since that 3270-based reader is a lot better than the Windows
or Web versions. Someone once made a 3390 volume with all .BOO files known
to him.

I keep quite a few of /400s and my /390 + z14, so I'm often exposed to
documentation in this format. It's not that hard to deal with once you have
a working reader setup - just make sure to avoid the Java cruft.

/y

On Mon, 11 Dec 2023 at 10:58, Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: dave.g4...@gmail.com <dave.g4...@gmail.com>
> > Sent: Monday, December 11, 2023 9:35 AM
> > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > Subject: RE: [cctalk] Re: IBM .BOO format
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > > Sent: Monday, December 11, 2023 12:09 AM
> > > To: Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > > Cc: Chuck Guzis <ccl...@sydex.com>
> > > Subject: [cctalk] Re: IBM .BOO format
> > >
> > > On 12/10/23 14:04, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> > > > Does anyone have any experience with the IBM BookManager format and
> > > > the tools to read it?
> > > >
> > >
> > > Have you looked at http://kev009.com/wp/projects/boo2pdf/
> >
> > Sadly it doesn't work, and the source code has gone as well
>
> Sorry Chuck, the source code does appear to be in github.
> It looks like the "transmogrifier" in there might solve the problems I had
> with images
>
> >
> > >
> > > --chuck
> > >
> >
> > Dave
> Dave
>
>

-- 




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