Prodigy Reverse-Engineering Tools Released

June 6th, 2017 by Benj Edwards

Prodigy Online Service Logo

After promising this for years, it’s time to finally release the Prodigy Preservation Project’s reverse-engineering tools. They’re not much, and they’re written in Python, but this code is the means by which I’ve been extracting fossilized Prodigy pages from STAGE.DAT files for the past few years.

I have been delaying announcing their availability because I was hoping Jim Carpenter, the author of these tools (and my partner on the Prodigy Preservation Project) would have more time to add more functionality and documentation, but he has not made any changes to the code since late 2015.

Yeah, I know that was almost two years ago. I’m sorry — things move slowly in ProdigyLand.

So here it is, everybody. Have at it. I hope you can help us improve them.

https://github.com/jim02762/prodigy-classic-tools

Just let me know what you find, and I’ll add it to my Flickr galleries.



6 Responses to “Prodigy Reverse-Engineering Tools Released”

  1. Benj Edwards Says:

    Sure is quiet in here.

  2. Multimedia Mike Says:

    This is pretty nifty. I hope to dig into this code sometime. Prodigy was my first online experience and I distinctly remember STAGE.DAT as being important to the system.

  3. Benj Edwards Says:

    I am hoping that some skilled programmers can help us extend the code and make it more useful. I needs to put up the NAPLPS specs and some docs on the Reception System we have.

  4. Ron Crowe Says:

    LOL – I worked for Prodigy as one of the two L2 techs in Gray TN, wrote a huge amount of the canned replies we used for support for both Mail Manager as well as original and Prodigy for Windows!

    What a flashback guys, White Plains would be proud 🙂

  5. Geoff V. Says:

    Hi Ron,
    I’d love to hear more about your time at Prodigy. Did you feel like you were give the right tools to do your job, or did you need to overcome technological obstacles?

  6. Jack Teadore Says:

    I worked for Prodigy for a long time on the dial access team. It was always a challenge as we were always developing new things and also the tools to help us test and develop as well. We have really come a long way since then but it is great to look back. Found some old souvenirs of my time there. Brings back some great memories. Hope to help Ben recreate the service.

Leave a Reply