Jump to content

.nfo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 84.176.241.182 (talk) at 18:48, 12 February 2007 (DAMN-NFO-Viewer-link changed to the overview site...). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This page is about the filename extension. For other uses of the abbreviation "NFO", see NFO.

.nfo is a contraction of "info", or "information". It is used as a three-letter filename extension indicating a generic ASCII text file designed to be viewed with a text editor or specially designed NFO viewers. As an example, when a user opens a .rar file with WinRAR that contains a .nfo file, it will show up in the viewer to the right of the archive list to display information about that archive.

Less commonly, in Microsoft Windows, a file with an NFO filename extension is handled by a Microsoft software tool called System Information.

Purpose of NFO

NFO files usually contain release information about a software program. They are commonly associated with copyright infringement groups responsible for warez who include them to declare credit of and "bragging rights" over said release. Similarly they are often found in Demoscene productions who include them for credits, contact details, and the software requirements.

They can be found in many ZIP archives today and were common, or required, during the era of the BBS. A typical modern day warez NFO file is elaborate and highly decorated, donning a large ASCII art logo at the top with various software release and warez group information below. The designers of these NFO files frequently incorporate non-ASCII compliant characters in the file, primarily those found in Code page 437. This can result in some interesting results on screen if the viewer is using an editor which does not support this code page. While there are specific viewers intended for opening NFO files, simply using Windows Notepad and selecting the Terminal font is generally sufficient, the only difference being that text will be black on a white background in Windows Notepad rather than white on a black background as seen when viewing in MS-DOS, making some of the art appear to be "inverse" like that of a film negative. Before Windows 95 was introduced, NFO files would sometimes contain ANSI art animations that required ANSI.SYS to be loaded by the DOS shell.

Canonical origins

NFO files were first introduced by "Fabulous Furlough" of the PC copyright infringement organization The Humble Guys, or THG[1]. Such organizations were also known as "warez groups" or "crack groups". The first use came in 1989 on the THG release of the PC game "Bubble Bobble". This file was used in lieu of the more common "README.TXT" or "README.1ST" file names. The perpetuation of this file extension legacy was carried on by "warez groups" which followed after THG and is still in use to this day, hence its strong presence on Usenet newsgroups which carry binaries and on P2P file trading networks.

The Humble Guys later became a demogroup, thus bringing the .nfo file tradition into the demoscene.

See also

References

  1. ^ NFO files by THG - Evidence of the very first NFO files by The Humble Guys.

NFO tools

  • DAMN NFO Viewer A popular viewer by ivanopulo/DAMN created for the sole purpose of displaying NFO files. Freeware.
  • DIZzy A compact standalone viewer created for the sole purpose of displaying NFO/DIZ files. Freeware.
  • Ansilove/PHP A set of tools for converting ANSi/BiN/ADF/iDF/TUNDRA/XBiN files into PNG images
  • NFO2TXT Viewer and converter NFO files to TXT (notepad windows).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=.nfo&oldid=107617027"