Re: dsk and do files

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Jeff Blakeney wrote:
> 
> On 13 May 1998 03:29:03 GMT, supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:
> 
> >There may be a difference between a file archive and a disk image
> >archive, but .shk designates BOTH.  That's what Andy Nicholas
> >intended and that's what Shrinkit does by default.
 ....
> 
> Actually, this is just following the naming conventions that had
> occurred over time.  For example here are some common suffixes and
> what they contain:
> 
> BNY = Binary II wrapped file(s)
> 
> SHK = ShrinkIt archive   BXY = ShrinkIt archive in a Binary II wrapper
> QQ = Squeezed file   BQY = Squeezed file in a Binary II wrapper
> 
> It is always nice to know what it is you are downloading so that
> you'll know if you have the software to unpack it successfully.
> 
> In the case of SDK disks, GSHK cannot unpack 5.25" disk archives that
> are not formatted for ProDOS.  It can create them, but it cannot
> unpack them.  You have to use the 8 bit ShrinkIt to unpack them.

     This seems to be a fairly common belief which may, to some degree,
have been propagated by earlier versions of our FAQs. (The ambiguity was
corrected in Revision 003.)

     The GS version of ShrinkIt (GSHK) can create whole-disk archives of
non-ProDOS 5.25" disks (e.g. DOS 3.3, Pascal, ...); and, it can unShrink
these GSHK-created archives to diskette. GSHK will not unShrink
non-ProDOS disk archives created by 8-bit ShrinkIt.

     Meanwhile, 8-bit ShrinkIt will unShrink ProDOS and non-ProDOS disk
archives created by itself as well as by GSHK. 8-bit ShrinkIt will not
handle self-extracting (.SEA) file archives or .SHK file archives which
contain GS forked files.

     So, the 'usual practice' is to use 8-bit ShrinkIt to handle all
5.25" whole-disk archives. Typically, these have the .SDK extension.
Until GSHK is modified to handle non-ProDOS disk images created by 8-bit
ShrinkIt, we must maintain both versions of ShrinkIt.   


> Not
> only that, but you have to have a blank disk ready before you can
> unpack shrunk disks.
>
 ....

     Yes; however, ShrinkIt (and GS-ShrinkIt) actually handles things a
bit more smoothly here than the popular DSK file utilities. ShrinkIt
will format a blank diskette when it moves an .SDK or .SHK disk archive
to diskette. ASIMOV and DSK2FILE require that the target diskette for a
DSK file conversion be pre-formatted.


Rubywand