Re: help with the ground's archives

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Michael Maginnis wrote:

>Need some help getting binscii (or any other IIgs compression program)
>to recognize the archives from the ground ftp site.  
>
>Here's how I'm transferring:
>
>download to a windoze xp machine
>transfer to hfs-formatted zip cart via TransMac
>attempt to open archives on the iigs using various compression apps
>
>None of them will recognize the files as archives.  This method has
>worked with every other type of archive I've tried (sdk, shk, bxy,
>etc).  I've tried trimming the extraneous text at the top of the files
>(everything above the "Filestart" line) and transferring the files
>both as text and data, with no luck.
>
>I've no intention of using the null-modem cable / adt method to
>transfer files, so if someone has a solution to offer that works with
>the zip-drive method, i'd appreciate it.

Your method will work, but BINSCII is not a compression program--
it's an _expansion_ program!  ;-)

It is in the same spirit as B64--it simply encodes a binary file
into the 7-bit ASCII character set.

You need an un-BINSCII program on the Apple end.  (Actually,
you could un-BINSCII on the Windows machine, since your
transport path from there on supports binary.)

BINSCII is available for 8-bit Apples (and gsCII or something for
the IIgs) on ground, caltech, or almost any archive.

With binary file transfers now ubiquitous, BINSCII is no longer
needed except to un-BINSCII very old files or files posted in
an ASCII "binaries" newsgroup.

-michael

Check out amazing quality sound for 8-bit Apples on my
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/