Digital Archaeology: IBM Shockwave Basketball Game

Nov 24, 2021 · 6 min read ·

Update: Thanks to Google Books I found a reference to this game in the book "Brand Leadership: Building Assets In an Information Economy":

"IBM sponsored an interactive sports game, the Shockwave IBM Virtual Dunkathon, on a number of sport- and game-related sites (such as nba.com) to attract young, technology-savvy customers who otherwise might shun Big Blue"

"Brand Leadership: Building Assets In an Information Economy" on Google Books

I'll leave the original article below in case it helps somebody with a similar Shockwave file exploration.

I'm not sure what the history is about this Shockwave game but I do remember it is something I played when I was in school. I was looking through my files/digital hoard and found this game. Shockwave is very much dead but you can still run it using Shockwave Projector on Windows.

IBM Shockwave Virtual Dunkathon Game - nba.dcr

Shockwave Projector 11.5 (Windows)

As I had fond memories playing this, I went through the process of extracting the data from the .dcr file in an attempt to find out more about it. A quick Google search pointed me towards Offzip, a tool that can extract content from .dcr files.

  1jeff@xyz:~$ mkdir offzip
  2jeff@xyz:~$ cd offzip/
  3jeff@xyz:~/offzip$ wget https://aluigi.altervista.org/mytoolz/offzip.zip
  4--2021-11-24 16:57:42--  https://aluigi.altervista.org/mytoolz/offzip.zip
  5Resolving aluigi.altervista.org (aluigi.altervista.org)... 176.9.82.46
  6Connecting to aluigi.altervista.org (aluigi.altervista.org)|176.9.82.46|:443... connected.
  7HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
  8Length: 221417 (216K) [application/zip]
  9Saving to: ‘offzip.zip’
 10
 11offzip.zip             100%[======================================>] 216.23K   567KB/s    in 0.4s
 12
 132021-11-24 16:57:43 (567 KB/s) - ‘offzip.zip’ saved [221417/221417]
 14
 15jeff@xyz:~/offzip$ unzip offzip.zip
 16jeff@xyz:~/offzip# make
 17<build output omitted>
 18
 19jeff@xyz:~/offzip$ cd ~/ibm
 20
 21jeff@xyz:~/ibm$ ../offzip/offzip -a nba.dcr . 0
 22
 23Offzip 0.4.1
 24by Luigi Auriemma
 25e-mail: aluigi@autistici.org
 26web:    aluigi.org
 27
 28- open input file:    nba.dcr
 29- enter in directory: .
 30- zip data to check:  32 bytes
 31- zip windowBits:     15
 32- seek offset:        0x00000000  (0)
 33
 34+------------+-----+----------------------------+----------------------+
 35| hex_offset | ... | zip -> unzip size / offset | spaces before | info |
 36+------------+-----+----------------------------+----------------------+
 37  0x0000001c . 164 -> 214 / 0x000000c0 _ 28 8:7:26:0:1:7aa649f6
 38  0x000000c9 . 1122 -> 2318 / 0x0000052b _ 9 8:7:26:0:1:69e3f4ae
 39  0x00000530 ..... 9145 -> 34810 / 0x000028e9 _ 5 8:7:26:0:1:9d3ef6d0
 40  0x000028e9 .. 2597 -> 6655 / 0x0000330e _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:80742e35
 41  0x0000330e . 372 -> 1536 / 0x00003482 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:cd178597
 42  0x00003482 ........................ 47165 -> 93231 / 0x0000ecbf _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:4b25c489
 43  0x0000ecbf . 536 -> 1074 / 0x0000eed7 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:fd7030a1
 44  0x0000eed7 . 36 -> 35 / 0x0000eefb _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:119b0290
 45  0x0000eefb . 36 -> 35 / 0x0000ef1f _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:119b0290
 46  0x0000ef1f . 788 -> 1357 / 0x0000f233 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:3110a2b2
 47  0x0000f233 . 98 -> 182 / 0x0000f295 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:79be412a
 48  0x0000f295 . 860 -> 1545 / 0x0000f5f1 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:4321af40
 49  0x00010282 . 788 -> 1454 / 0x00010596 _ 3217 8:7:26:0:1:576e8f93
 50  0x00012171 . 33 -> 35 / 0x00012192 _ 7131 8:7:26:0:1:099a0073
 51  0x00012192 . 33 -> 35 / 0x000121b3 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:099a0073
 52  0x000121b3 . 33 -> 35 / 0x000121d4 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:099a0073
 53  0x000121d4 . 33 -> 35 / 0x000121f5 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:099a0073
 54  0x000121f5 . 33 -> 35 / 0x00012216 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:099a0073
 55  0x00012216 . 525 -> 1274 / 0x00012423 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:8616ddb2
 56  0x0001243c . 1198 -> 3425 / 0x000128ea _ 25 8:7:26:0:1:41f6572f
 57  0x000128ea . 640 -> 1740 / 0x00012b6a _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:c4530d13
 58  0x00012b6a . 40 -> 34 / 0x00012b92 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:9b060963
 59  0x00012b92 . 1622 -> 3503 / 0x000131e8 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:e685620e
 60  0x000186a1 . 843 -> 1515 / 0x000189ec _ 21689 8:7:26:0:1:8bb82149
 61  0x000189ec . 828 -> 1367 / 0x00018d28 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:11dbc49a
 62  0x00018d28 . 754 -> 1299 / 0x0001901a _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:e3a99add
 63  0x0001901a . 878 -> 1761 / 0x00019388 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:de978a81
 64  0x0001a8ab .... 6738 -> 11050 / 0x0001c2fd _ 5411 8:7:26:0:1:af182080
 65  0x0001c2fd . 853 -> 1441 / 0x0001c652 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:2ad0efe9
 66  0x0001c652 . 875 -> 1468 / 0x0001c9bd _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:68f3a951
 67  0x0001c9bd . 713 -> 1129 / 0x0001cc86 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:60081024
 68  0x0001cc86 . 701 -> 1063 / 0x0001cf43 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:2f2b121e
 69  0x0001cf43 . 787 -> 1470 / 0x0001d256 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:3b719ddd
 70  0x0001f9d7 . 814 -> 1513 / 0x0001fd05 _ 10113 8:7:26:0:1:bc332791
 71  0x0001fd05 . 911 -> 1566 / 0x00020094 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:d10def63
 72  0x00020094 . 931 -> 1541 / 0x00020437 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:60df0049
 73  0x00020437 . 955 -> 1688 / 0x000207f2 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:dc2918b3
 74  0x000207f2 . 765 -> 1262 / 0x00020aef _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:55997fbe
 75  0x00020aef . 90 -> 182 / 0x00020b49 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:5a312b7c
 76  0x00020b49 . 948 -> 1744 / 0x00020efd _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:857e0fe9
 77  0x00020efd . 1025 -> 1834 / 0x000212fe _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:ae0f58e0
 78  0x000212fe . 1062 -> 1871 / 0x00021724 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:ecd85e00
 79  0x00021724 . 1000 -> 1680 / 0x00021b0c _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:71cd404d
 80  0x00021b0c . 947 -> 1820 / 0x00021ebf _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:cc8c2a1c
 81  0x00021ebf . 956 -> 1843 / 0x0002227b _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:6c034d90
 82  0x0002227b . 1030 -> 1841 / 0x00022681 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:b94a4886
 83  0x00022681 . 1042 -> 1971 / 0x00022a93 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:662d8424
 84  0x00022a93 . 198 -> 476 / 0x00022b59 _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:541a453c
 85  0x00022b59 . 260 -> 538 / 0x00022c5d _ 0 8:7:26:0:1:12a9564e
 86
 87
 88- 49 valid compressed streams found
 89- 0x00017251 -> 0x0003133a bytes covering the 66% of the file
 90
 91jeff@xyz:~/ibm$ file *
 920000001c.dat: data
 93000000c9.dat: MIPSEL-BE Ucode
 9400000530.dat: data
 95000028e9.ini: Non-ISO extended-ASCII text, with CR line terminators
 960000330e.dc5: data
 9700003482.dat: data
 980000ecbf.dat: data
 990000eed7.atn: data
1000000eefb.atn: data
1010000ef1f.dat: data
1020000f233.dat: data
1030000f295.dat: data
10400010282.dat: data
10500012171.atn: data
10600012192.atn: data
107000121b3.atn: data
108000121d4.atn: data
109000121f5.atn: data
11000012216.fff: data
1110001243c.dat: data
112000128ea.fff: data
11300012b6a.dat: ASCII text, with CR line terminators
11400012b92.dat: data
115000186a1.dat: data
116000189ec.dat: data
11700018d28.dat: data
1180001901a.dat: data
1190001a8ab.dat: data
1200001c2fd.dat: data
1210001c652.dat: data
1220001c9bd.dat: data
1230001cc86.dat: data
1240001cf43.dat: data
1250001f9d7.dat: data
1260001fd05.dat: data
12700020094.dat: data
12800020437.dat: data
129000207f2.dat: data
13000020aef.dat: data
13100020b49.dat: data
13200020efd.dat: data
133000212fe.dat: data
13400021724.dat: data
13500021b0c.dat: data
13600021ebf.dat: data
1370002227b.dat: data
13800022681.dat: data
13900022a93.dat: data
14000022b59.dat: data
141nba.dcr:      RIFF (big-endian) data
142
143jeff@xyz:~/ibm$ strings * > strings.txt

From the ascii strings these are the ones I found interesting:

1D. J. Hacker - PGI
2Earth:Projects:IBM:Shockwave:nba
3(Phoenix:Desktop Folder:nba shock:nba.dir
4HPhoenix:Applications:Communications:Incoming Files:nba:nba shock:nba.dir

This was about all I was able to get from the file. I wasn't able to open or extract the files outputted by offzip. Does anybody know anything about the history of this game or how to dig deeper? If so, please let me know!

Useful links:

https://aluigi.altervista.org/mytoolz.htm#offzip

https://zenhax.com/viewtopic.php?t=5

https://zenhax.com/viewtopic.php?t=252