Re: IIgs game programming?

[drhirudo@mail.bg (Ventzislav Tzvetkov)]

Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote in message news:<409F7548.98781F0B@swbell.net>...
> "Michael J. Mahon" writes ...
>      Have read pages about setting up types. The problem is that there is so
> much variation among browsers, OS's, host sites, host servers, filetypes, and
> formats.
> 
>      Looking at things from the distributor end ... If someone actually wants
> his/her Apple II software to get downloaded from an html site in one piece
> without all sorts of hassle, he/she should stick the .shk, .sdk, etc. file in
> a .zip file.
> 
>      Otherwise, adding ".bin" as the only dot suffix to the file name (and
> telling the user to change the name after downloading) is a decent
> workaround.
> 
>      Even Apple Computer adopted the practice of adding the ".bin" suffix to
> .shk, .sea, ... files it wanted to be sure would be downloaded as uncorrupted
> binary by Apple II users.
> 
> 
>      From the user/downloader end, it looks like you've got to be prepared to
> experiment with different browsers and setups and learn which html sites
> supply the most trouble-free downloads. Plus, it's a good idea to have UnCook
> ready in order to recover uncorrupted downloads. 
> 
>      What do you suggest as good fishing advice for downloading special Apple
> II type binary files from html sites?

I think best bet is to have the same file in different formats, so the
end users can make a choise which will work best for them. For example
my games are originally in zipped .dsk images ready for the causal PC
user which have installed AppleWin and can be started with a click.
But for the real Apple 2 users and the more experienced, they are also
available at the Umich ftp as BXY files, so they these people aren't
omitted.

For more complex installs it's good to write step by step how-to,
althought there always will be somebody who didn't understand it at
all.

-- 
http://drhirudo.hit.bg