Re: .GZ (GNU) Files???

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4ki3se$oq4@apollo.isisnet.com>,
Tony Cianfaglione <ab616@ccn.cs.dal.ca> wrote:
>   How come the GNU (.GZ) compressed files, when uncompressed and form 143K 
>files, do not fit on a 5.25" disk? The files at CDROM uncompress to form 
>143k disk files, yet once a disk is formatted, only 137k remains.
>   Also, the few that fit rendered a message 'Unable To Load Prodos'. 

>   Granted, these files are designed to be used with PC emulators but 
>they are supposedly able to be used with Apple II's as well. Even 
>Shrinkit won't restore the file to disk because it was a full disk at the 
>beginning and wasn't shrunk, just GNU-compressed.

   It's not the fault of the .GZ compression. It's not the fault of
whomever made the archive. It's the fault of whomever started pirating
all these disks so that anyone without a clue could try and use disks.

   Those files being passed around are disk _images_. That is, they're
100% of a full disk, and contain every track and sector from the disk,
whether they're used or not. You cannot copy them as a file to a
formatted disk; there is not enough space for the formatting info and
a full disk to reside on the same disk.

   If you wanted to use them, you'd have to reverse the original
process which read off all the sectors and take the info and write it
to a disk. Go see the FAQ for comp.emulators.apple2 for more info.

Nathan Mates

-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in 
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