Getting good downloads from Apple II http web sites

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

     Unfortunately many net servers for Apple II http pages are not set up to
supply correct MIME type information for popular Apple II file types  such as
.shk, .sdk, .dsk, .bxy, etc.. As a result, browser downloads from these web pages
will often be corrupted.

(By the way, right-clicking on the item will not circumvent the problem. This will
let you choose to download a file taken to be a Text MIME type rather than have it
dumped to your display; but, it will not avoid Text mode corruption.)

     One workaround a download page manager can employ is to rename the Apple II
files with an added .bin suffix. (Any suffix recognized as a standard PC binary
type will do-- e.g. ".zip" is okay-- but ".bin" has the advantage of being
accurate.)  For example "mar2_0_1.bxy" could become "mar2_0_1bxy.bin".

     From the user's side, a cure which usually seems to work is to employ the PC
utility Uncook after downloading an .shk, etc. file from an http page.

     Uncook, of course, was 'discovered' by GS Ed (manager of the ACN Florida
archive); and, he uploaded it to comp.binaries.apple2. Tests indicate that it
usually succeeds when the file is corrupted.

     However, if the file is not corrupted, Uncook may produce a messed up copy!
Fortunately, it is pretty easy to tell when the latter occurs and when it doesn't:

If the result of Uncook is a file just 2-4 or so bytes smaller, the original is
probably good and the Uncook is bad.

If the new (Uncooked) file is known to be the correct size (like it's a 143,360
byte .dsk file) or if it is many bytes smaller, or if the site is known to deliver
corrupted files, then the Uncooked file is probably good. 

And, if there is any doubt, you can always try using both files-- e.g. the .sdk
file which gets you a "bad data" error during unshrinking is the bad one.


     You can find Uncook.zip on ACN Florida and ACN Tarnover:

ftp://24.96.48.134:6502/Cabi_Archives/Utilities/
ftp://tarnover.dyndns.org/cabi/Utilities/ .



Rubywand