Re: Shrinkit to GS from Mac?

[nparker@cie-2.uoregon.edu (Neil Parker)]

In article <4otu2j$nk1@news.vanderbilt.edu> lesherjt@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
(John Lesher) writes:
>James Grubic (grubic@avicom.net) wrote:
>: I have a partial T1 on my Mac, and I'd like to use it to transfer
>: downloaded files to the GS I'm using. I got the program "BINSCII.EXE"
>: (via ProDOS) onto the GS, but the thing won't execute! I keep getting
>: ?FILE TYPE MISMATCH error. I've tried saving in every format I could
>: think of from the Mac, but it either comes across as "unknown" or
>: "AppleWorks". Apparently, the system basic can only read a system basic
>: file, or perhaps an ASCII...I don't know because I can't get the file
>: into one of those formats.
>
>: Is there a Mac utility out there that assigns the proper file creator
>: to this BINSCII file? Or maybe creates the actual file so that I can
>: put it onto a ProDOS disk and copy it over to the GS?
>
>Pardon if this is wrong, but I always got the impression that files
>which ended in .EXE were for execution on an IBM only.  If you want
>the binscii utility, you can probably get it from the same site, only
>as a .shk file (which you gotta unshrink before using).

This is often true, but not always.

In the Apple II world, files ending in .EXE are usually "Executioner"
files.  An Executioner file is essentially a self-extracting archive--once
you've got it onto your Apple II (and have the news/mail headers stripped
off), you unpack it by EXECing it.

If you look inside an Executioner file, you'll usually see something
like this:

CALL-151
E00:38 A5 FF D0 32 D8 20 8E FD AD 30 BF 8D 6A 0E 20 00 BF C7 6D 0E 0D 80 02
E18:D0 1D 20 00 BF C5 69 0E B0 15 AD 81 02 29 0F AA E8 8E 80 02 A9 2F 8D 81
E30:02 20 00 BF C6 6D 0E A2 08 B0 0E 20 00 BF C3 70 0E B0 06 A2 26 20 53 0E
E48:AA 20 53 0E 4C D0 03 20 ED FD E8 BD 59 0E D0 F7 60 A0 F3 E1 F6 E5 E4 8D
E60:00 C5 F2 F2 EF F2 87 8D 00 02 00 81 02 01 80 02 07 7E 0E E3 FF 00 20 00
E78:00 00 8B B2 13 09 07 C2 C9 CE D3 C3 C9 C9 00
F00:D8 A0 00 84 FF 88 84 E0 A9 0F 85 E1 20 67 FD A0 00 A2 FF 20 2F 0F E6 E0
F18:D0 02 E6 E1 0A 0A 0A 0A 91 E0 20 2F 0F 11 E0 91 E0 45 FF 85 FF 90 E4 E8
F30:BD 00 02 09 80 C9 A0 F0 F6 49 B0 C9 0A 90 17 69 88 09 20 C9 FA B0 0C 68
F48:68 E0 04 B0 BF 98 91 E0 4C 69 FF 18 29 0F 60
F00G
4C8620EEEE800030313233343536373839414243444546303132333435363738
3941424344454630313233343536373839414243444546303132333435363738
3941424344450030313233343536373839414243444546303132333435363738
      (...and a lot more lines like that...)
20C3040000010000000004000000000000003031323334353637383941424344
4546303132333435363738394142434445463031323334353637383941424344
4546303132333435363738394142434445ED
CREATE FOO,TSYS
BSAVE FOO,TSYS,A$1000,L$0E31
E00G

(If you got your BINSII.EXE from apple2.caltech.edu, it'll look a bit
different, but the idea is the same.)

Executioner is a rare format these days, because now we have BinSCII, which
produces smaller text files, has error checking, and is much easier to
break into multiple parts for USENET posting.  With only a few exceptions
(mostly older files on brownvm.brown.edu), Executioner is only used today
for distributing the BINSCII program itself (which obviously can't be
distributed as a BinSCII file, unless you're fond of chicken-and-egg
puzzles).

              - Neil Parker
-- 
Neil Parker                       | No cute quote, no cute ASCII art, no cute
nparker@cie-2.uoregon.edu         | disclaimer, no deposit, no return....
nparker@cie.uoregon.edu           | (This space intentionally left blank:
http://cie-2.uoregon.edu/~nparker |                                           )