Re: more about BinSCII and Apple File Exchange

[dempson@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

In article <Pine.ULT.3.91.950831194257.8464B-100000@rac5.wam.umd.edu>,
Master of the Forsaken Souls  <teridon@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
> 
> I downloaded a2binscii.exe from ftp.apple.com on to my Mac, used 
> Apple File Exchange to put it on a ProDOS disk, and copied it to 
> my Hard Drive's ProDOS partition.  So now what do I do with it???
> I can't figure out how to get it onto the DOS partition so I can
> run it from the BASIC prompt.

Eh?  BinSCII is a ProDOS program, not a DOS 3.3 program.  You get into
BASIC.SYSTEM and EXEC the "binscii.exe" program.  This will then
create a ProDOS SYS file called "BINSCII", which is the actual BinSCII
program.

> Also, the file sysdisk.bsc is too darned big to fit on one disk!  
> Is there anyway to split it and recombine it?

Yes.  It is a text file, so you can edit it on the Mac.  Go about half
way through file and look for a break between two BinSCII segments.
It will look something like this:

[lots of 64 character lines up to this point]
AMiQBkw0hBXiDO1LNjBQgIIYsdA1bPhUzpO2LC7xgJQDYB2BBagqtZoErKlgALwL
waTdtBbOANYZeLdBZWrUn1OcN8wq2a64NEbtsyjAXz9ud9ktMEsGDykqw3RCcgyl
PaBElYozk34VycQhj2gPAVRL(GMAQizKCcaCervBa(hke4VkEMIJGkkZRA(C0YUP
AE(t
FiLeStArTfIlEsTaRt
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789()
NSYSTEMDISK.SHK AUzNAADACA(4cIAg)KBAScRIXEyvAUwNAw4N
XYxA7QAgxTFsgIH97kfGAhAABsoD7IKQ1pe(qAr0pJCsgBGmTmNCcTrqsVkksNqY
6OARUBYVoDIKFCByQHAC6wbCY9xRIVoMXJoBCjDEXMVGwLcCsSoyqD4gEzG6wXZ1

Split the file at the "FiLeStArTfIlEsTaRt" line, which is the start of
the next segment.

You can then copy the two files over to the Apple II and run them both
through BinSCII.  Note: you will need _two_ 3.5" drives, or set up a
RAM disk that is large enough to hold each part of the BinSCII file,
or the shrunk disk imge.

When unshrinking the disk image, you will also need two 3.5" drives or
a large enough RAM disk to hold the shrunk image.

> About Apple File Exchange:  Is it normal for the translation from
> Mac to ProDos to take so long?  It took about 20 minutes for me to copy
> a 720K file.

Yes.  Apple File Exchange has always been horribly slow.
-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand