Re: help with the ground's archives

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

I wrote (!):

>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.

I should have pointed out that it actually encodes into a 6-bit
subset of the 7-bit ASCII code.  ;-)

>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/