Re: (no subject)

[alexm@leng.zip.com.au (Alex Maddison)]

Rubywand (rubywand@swbell.net) wrote:

:      Interesting info ... . It would be nice to know why disk image 
: (.DSK) files are not compressed using standard PKZip. PMPUnZip seems to 
: handle .ZIP files well on the GS. Reducing the number of popular A2 stuff 
: packer formats to two (ShrinkIt and PKZip) would be helpful to users.

Gzip is used over PKZip for the simple reason that until the advent of
WinZip, Zip files didn't support long filenames. The MS-DOS version of
PKZip STILL doesn't use long filenames even in Win95. I guess that since
the FTP sites were Unix-based the maintainers didn't feel like being
constrained by the then-current eight character MS-DOS filename
format imposed by Zip files. Even the Apple II's filename constraints are
less lenient than Unix.

:      For .gz files, WinZip certainly gets the job done quickly and easily 
: on the PC. The resulting .DSK files can, then, be accessed via an 
: emmulator or transferred to the GS and converted back to diskette form.  

Which is, no offence meant, the entire purpose of the FTP sites (that
is, they are for emulators). If it's not convenient to simply "Gunzip" the
files on a shell account prior to downloading then WinZip and MacGzip (for
the Macintosh) take around ten or fifteen seconds to run. When the .DSK
FTP sites were first put up, there was little or no desire to convert the
files BACK to 5.25" floppies. For the majority of emulator users, I
suspect, that desire is still true.

Alex.

-- 

Alex Maddison                         Address: PO Box 6399
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