Quote:
Originally Posted by texasnightowl
The only other thing I wonder...quite a while back I think I remember discussion where a "prc" book wasn't really a "mobi" book.
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PRC files originated on Palm OS. On a Palm OS device, only a Palm Database file can be in memory. Files in memory on Palm OS devices will have either PDB or PRC extensions. A PDB file is a generic Palm Database file. The actual content may be anything. Each Pam Database file has a header record, and the header record includes database attributes like the Creator ID and the file Type, which tells the OS what program owns that file and can open and read it.
A PRC file is a Palm Resource file, which is another type of Palm database. Palm Resource files are are normally Palm OS programs, and the resources they contain are program code, but they don't
have to be programs.
For whatever reason, MobiPocket chose to use the PRC extension for Mobi books. (You can actually rename a Mobi book from .PRC to .PDB, stick it on a Palm device, and the Palm Mobi reader will read it fine.)
Files with a Creator ID of READ and a Type of TeXT are in PalmDOC format, which was originated by the old Aportis reader. PalmDOC is a plain text file, compressed to save space in RAM. (It originated in the days when a Palm device had a whopping 8KB to 16KB of RAM, and space in memory was at a premium.) PalmDOC readers decompress the file on the fly as they display them. Aportis is long gone, but the format was reverse engineered, and a number of Palm OS viewers can display it, including Mobi Reader.
On other platforms than Palm OS, Mobipocket files normally have a .mobi extension.
So no, an ebook file with a .PRC extension is not necessarily a Mobipocket formatted ebook.
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Dennis