Re: 3.5" Disk archiving

[Jeff Blakeney <CUTjblakeney@sentex.net>]

On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:07:05 +1300, Roger Johnstone <rojaws@es.co.nz>
wrote:

>The warning: "Disk archives are an old archive format, are often larger 
>than file archives, and many people consider them inconvenient. Disk 
>archives are meant only for those occasions when there is no other way 
>to archive something (such as old DOS 3.3 disks)."

Disk archives, when done using the method I described in my previous
post in this thread, are only fractionally larger than a file archive.
It is even possible for a disk archive to be smaller than a file
archive if there are a large number of files involved.

The problem you mention below about disk archives being more
inconvenient to use is a good reason to avoid them if you can, though.
I'm just saying that they aren't necessarily as bad as some people
make them out to be.

>You're right, there are times when a disk archive is required, but I 
>think the problem is many people who were used to working with floppy 
>disks were archiving entire disks when they didn't need to. This becomes 
>a problem when the recipient has a hard drive and has to extract the 
>archive to a floppy (especially if they have no 800KB RAM disk set up) 
>just so they can copy the files back to the hard drive.

This is where Nathan Mates' SwatterDisk utility comes in real handy on
the IIgs.  You can create up to four RAM disks in various sizes that
you can use to unpack disk archives onto and then you can do a file
copy from there if you want.

>The warning is 
>basically saying only use disk archives if you have some special reason 
>to, since file archives work equally well when extracted to any type of 
>disk, but disk archives require the original disk type.

True.  Maybe I should edit GSHK to change the error message to
something more appropriate.  :-)

>Now that a lot of people are using emulators the same problem is 
>reoccuring i.e. people are distributing disk archives of ProDOS software 
>again. This is easier for the emulator users but harder for a real Apple 
>II to cope with.

The best solution would be if the program used to unpack the archives
on the real Apple II could give the user the option to unpack disk
images to a disk or to give the user a list of the files on that disk
image and unpack/extract the files the user selects.

-- 
 Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II University in the
                 Apple II Community on Syndicomm.com
 CUT the obvious from my address if you want to e-mail me