Re: Internet files from Mac to Apple?

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <353957C7.75D@ix.netcom.com>,
Bob and Linda Barrett  <blbarret@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>I need help. I know how to get disk images of Apple II software from the
>internet to my PowerMac, but have NO idea how to get them onto disks
>that will run in the GS's and IIe's I have at school.  I know how to
>format ProDos disks on the Mac, but after that, I'm lost.Straight across
>drag-and drop doesn't work.  I did read the Apple II FAQ (thanks
>Nathan), and visited Emulation.net but I admit it confused me more than
>enlightened me.

   First off, legitimate Apple II software on the net has file
extensions of .SHK, .BXY or .BSQ, with a few rare exceptions like the
GSHK 1.1 .SEA. Other extensions such as .dsk are used by pirates and
will get *zero* help in unpacking them from the official csa2 FAQ
simply because they're illegally copied. 

   The CSA2 Faq walks you thru getting Binscii (for .BSQ files) and
Shrinkit (for .shk/.bxy) up and running, or you can get Steve
Cavanaugh's $3 modem starter disk (address in faq section 10.2) with
those programs already downloaded to your Apple II. With a Mac, the
current plan is to have the 'PC Exchange' control panel (though I've
heard that to use that under OS8, you have to turn off filesharing,
which is yet another quirk from the "user friendly" UI design
deities), and use a program called 'Protype' to undo the mucking with
files that the OS seems to insist on. [Messing with files w/o
permission making them unreadable elsewlere. In the real world, that'd
be called a virus, but to the "Don't think unless we tell you to" Mac
designers, they don't seem to care]. Then, from a real Apple II,
unpack the .shk files.

   It is not hard to get things to an Apple II, except that the
amazing variety of ways you can do so make a definitive list of steps
to take almost impossible. People email me asking how to navigate the
menuing systems on their unix shell accounts, as if that's in any way
standardized, they also expect that without mentioning what telcomm
apps are being used that I can psychicly list off the menu/keystrokes
for them, etc. My answer is the follow the guidelines in the FAQ, read
the fine manual & documentation, or ask their local sysadmin who knows
the system. "Standards"-- gotta love all of them :)

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? -R.A. Heinlein