Re: Shrinkit.Exe

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 19 Jun 1999 18:09:33 GMT, a2mg@aol.comNomail (TEXAS II -
AppleWorks) wrote:

>Would somebody care to comment about using Xtrax instead of Shrinkit to pack
>all 8-bit uploads, for example, Sneeze or AppleWorks add-ons? Would this be a
>reasonable thing to do? Thanks.

I would say that this shouldn't be done.  You only need to do tricks
to get an Apple II an operatings system and utilities.  As Xtrax
doesn't generate a true 7-bit ASCII text file, anyone transferring it
over a 7-bit connection will get a corrupted file.

All I've ever done is to make both Binary II wrapped ShrinkIt files
(.BXY) and BINscii encoded ShrinkIt files (.BSQ) of an archive
available.  If people have trouble downloading the BXY archive, then
they can get the BSQ archive which is a 7-bit ASCII text file and
can't be corrupted by transferring over 7-bit connections.  Even
having end of line characters (CR, LF, or CF/LF) converted into a
different end of line character(s) doesn't affect any of the BINscii
decoders I've used.

Xtrax sounds like a neat program but I'm pretty sure it is best used
on local BBS systems as you can be pretty sure of having an 8-bit
connection that way.  The internet, you can never be sure whether a
particular file will be transferred using a 7-bit or 8-bit connection
hence all the download problems Apple II users have had to face.

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