.nfo
Encyclopedia
.nfo is a commonly used three-letter filename extension
of ASCII
or extended ASCII
text files that accompany other files and contain information about them. Such NFO files can be viewed with text editor
s or dedicated NFO viewers. They commonly also contain elaborate ASCII art
.
groups who include them to declare credit of said release. Similarly they are often found in demoscene
productions, where the respective groups include them for credits, contact details, and the software requirements.
NFO files were common, and sometimes required, during the era of the BBS
. A typical warez NFO file was elaborate and highly decorated, and usually included a large ASCII art
logo along with software release and warez group information. The designers of these NFO files frequently incorporated extended ASCII
characters from the then near-ubiquitous code page 437
character set in the file.
Before Windows 95
was introduced, NFO files also sometimes used ANSI-escape sequences to generate animated ASCII art (ANSI art
). These animations, however, required ANSI.SYS
to be loaded by the DOS shell
. If the user's computer wasn't already configured to load the ANSI.SYS driver, viewing ANSI art required reconfiguring and rebooting. Because of this, ANSI art was much less common, and getting ANSI art to display correctly on a Windows 95 PC often proved more difficult, leading to a decline of such art in NFO files.
As of 2010, NFO files can still be found in many ZIP archives. In modern day warez NFO files, a large ASCII art logo is frequently shown at the top, followed by textual information below. Instead of using the old code page 437 extended ASCII characters, modern ASCII art uses the current de-facto web standard ISO-8859-1/ISO-8859-15 or Unicode
UTF-8
characters.
was never common on the World Wide Web
and is poorly supported by most (as of 2007) modern computers, older NFO files are frequently rendered incorrectly in modern web browsers and on modern operating system
s (which mostly no longer use code page 437). To display old NFO files as intended, a dedicated CP437-capable viewing software or conversion is often required.
An added problem lies in the fact that many modern web browsers and text editing programs often use proportional fonts, whereas the ASCII art included in both old and new NFO files is heavily dependent on the file being viewed with a fixed width font.
As a workaround, simply using a text editor
and selecting a monospace font may, in the absence of incompatible extended ASCII characters, sometimes be sufficient. In this case, the only difference might be that the text in GUI text editors will often be black on a white background (rather than white on a black background as seen when viewing in MS-DOS
or Unix console), thus making some of the art appear to be "inverse", like a film negative.
organization The Humble Guys
, or THG. Such organizations are also known as warez group
s 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 that carry binaries and on P2P file trading networks.
The Humble Guys later became a demogroup
, thus bringing the .nfo file tradition into the demoscene
.
, the NFO filename extension is associated with a Microsoft software tool called System Information (msinfo32.exe). System Information provides a general overview of a computer's system specifications as well as detailed information on the system's hardware components. It even includes information about the Windows environment. NFO files that are meant for System Information simply contain all of the information that System Information displays and are saved in an XML format.
Filename extension
A filename extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file applied to indicate the encoding of its contents or usage....
of ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
or extended ASCII
Extended ASCII
The term extended ASCII describes eight-bit or larger character encodings that include the standard seven-bit ASCII characters as well as others...
text files that accompany other files and contain information about them. Such NFO files can be viewed with text editor
Text editor
A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....
s or dedicated NFO viewers. They commonly also contain elaborate ASCII art
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
.
Content of NFO files
NFO files usually contain release information about a software program. They are commonly associated with warezWarez
Warez refers primarily to copyrighted works distributed without fees or royalties, and may be traded, in general violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to unauthorized releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar...
groups who include them to declare credit of said release. Similarly they are often found in demoscene
Demoscene
The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer...
productions, where the respective groups include them for credits, contact details, and the software requirements.
NFO files were common, and sometimes required, during the era of the BBS
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
. A typical warez NFO file was elaborate and highly decorated, and usually included a large ASCII art
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
logo along with software release and warez group information. The designers of these NFO files frequently incorporated extended ASCII
Extended ASCII
The term extended ASCII describes eight-bit or larger character encodings that include the standard seven-bit ASCII characters as well as others...
characters from the then near-ubiquitous code page 437
Code page 437
IBM PC or MS-DOS code page 437 is the character set of the original IBM PC. It is also known as CP 437, OEM 437, PC-8, MS-DOS Latin US or sometimes misleadingly referred to as the OEM font, High ASCII or Extended ASCII....
character set in the file.
Before Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
was introduced, NFO files also sometimes used ANSI-escape sequences to generate animated ASCII art (ANSI art
ANSI art
ANSI art is a computer art form that was widely used at one time on BBSes. It is similar to ASCII art, but constructed from a larger set of 256 letters, numbers, and symbols — all codes found in IBM code page 437, often referred to as extended ASCII and used in MS-DOS and Unix environments...
). These animations, however, required ANSI.SYS
ANSI.SYS
ANSI.SYS is a device driver in the DOS operating system that provides extra console functions through ANSI escape sequences. It is partially based upon a subset of the text terminal control standard proposed by the ANSI X3L2 Technical Committee on Codes and Character Sets .-Usage:To use ANSI.SYS...
to be loaded by the DOS shell
COMMAND.COM
COMMAND.COM is the filename of the default operating system shell for DOS operating systems and the default command line interpreter on Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me...
. If the user's computer wasn't already configured to load the ANSI.SYS driver, viewing ANSI art required reconfiguring and rebooting. Because of this, ANSI art was much less common, and getting ANSI art to display correctly on a Windows 95 PC often proved more difficult, leading to a decline of such art in NFO files.
As of 2010, NFO files can still be found in many ZIP archives. In modern day warez NFO files, a large ASCII art logo is frequently shown at the top, followed by textual information below. Instead of using the old code page 437 extended ASCII characters, modern ASCII art uses the current de-facto web standard ISO-8859-1/ISO-8859-15 or Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
UTF-8
UTF-8
UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...
characters.
Compatibility problems
Because the once-ubiquitous ASCII code page 437Code page 437
IBM PC or MS-DOS code page 437 is the character set of the original IBM PC. It is also known as CP 437, OEM 437, PC-8, MS-DOS Latin US or sometimes misleadingly referred to as the OEM font, High ASCII or Extended ASCII....
was never common on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
and is poorly supported by most (as of 2007) modern computers, older NFO files are frequently rendered incorrectly in modern web browsers and on modern operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s (which mostly no longer use code page 437). To display old NFO files as intended, a dedicated CP437-capable viewing software or conversion is often required.
An added problem lies in the fact that many modern web browsers and text editing programs often use proportional fonts, whereas the ASCII art included in both old and new NFO files is heavily dependent on the file being viewed with a fixed width font.
As a workaround, simply using a text editor
Text editor
A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....
and selecting a monospace font may, in the absence of incompatible extended ASCII characters, sometimes be sufficient. In this case, the only difference might be that the text in GUI text editors will often be black on a white background (rather than white on a black background as seen when viewing in MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
or Unix console), thus making some of the art appear to be "inverse", like a film negative.
Canonical origins
NFO files were first introduced by "Fabulous Furlough" of the PCIBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
organization The Humble Guys
The Humble Guys
The Humble Guys were a cracking group for the IBM PC during the late 1980s founded by two friends known by the pseudonyms Candyman and Fabulous Furlough. The group was also noticed in the demoscene for some of their cracktros....
, or THG. Such organizations are also known as warez group
Warez
Warez refers primarily to copyrighted works distributed without fees or royalties, and may be traded, in general violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to unauthorized releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar...
s or crack groups
Software cracking
Software cracking is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, usually related to protection methods: copy protection, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check or software annoyances...
. The first use came in 1989 on the THG release of the PC game Bubble Bobble
Bubble Bobble
is an arcade game by Taito, first released in 1986 and later ported to numerous home computers and game consoles. The game, starring the twin Bubble Dragons and , is an action-platform game in which players travel through one hundred different stages, blowing and bursting bubbles, avoiding...
. This file was used in lieu of the more common README.TXT
README
A readme file contains information about other files in a directory or archive and is commonly distributed with computer software. Such a file is usually a text file called README.TXT, README.1ST, READ.ME, or simply README, although some Microsoft Windows software may occasionally include a...
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
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroups that carry binaries and on P2P file trading networks.
The Humble Guys later became a demogroup
Demogroup
Demogroups are teams of demosceners, who make computer based audio-visual works of art known as demos. Demogroups form a subculture collectively known as the demoscene....
, thus bringing the .nfo file tradition into the demoscene
Demoscene
The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer...
.
File association
On Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, the NFO filename extension is associated with a Microsoft software tool called System Information (msinfo32.exe). System Information provides a general overview of a computer's system specifications as well as detailed information on the system's hardware components. It even includes information about the Windows environment. NFO files that are meant for System Information simply contain all of the information that System Information displays and are saved in an XML format.