Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uc!nic.MR.NET!umn-cs!hall!rosenkra
From: rosenkra@hall.cray.com (Bill Rosenkranz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ZOO and comp.binaries.atari.st
Message-ID: <3551@hall.cray.com>
Date: 1 Jul 89 21:00:45 GMT
References: <619@chyde.uwasa.fi> <1989Jul1.134205.14628@cs.dal.ca>
Reply-To: rosenkra@hall.UUCP (Bill Rosenkranz)
Organization: Cray Research, Inc., Mendota Heights, MN
Lines: 55

In article <1989Jul1.134205.14628@cs.dal.ca> bill@biomel.UUCP writes:
=In article <619@chyde.uwasa.fi> hv@chyde.uwasa.fi (Harri Valkama LAKE) writes:
=>I don't know how widely ZOO is used in Atari ST world but I
=>think that we should consider to change our "manners" in such
=>a way that comp.binaries.atari.st could use ONLY ZOO as the
=>one and only archiving pgm instead of ARC.
=
=I would approach this with caution.  Archivers have to work on many
=different machines, and extractors have to be widely available.
=
=First we have to ensure that all submitters have zoo and all
=potential users have either zoo or booz.  I haven't yet seen
=self-extracting archives for the ST such as those for PC zoo archives,
=but these could be dangerous (Trojans could be included).
                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

exactly!

i for one am EXTREMELY cautious about running programs which do not
come with source. the though of self extracting achives should make
you equally cautious.

arc has been serving everyone on the planet for so long with such good
success that minor incremental features do not seem warranted. if
u want to preserve a directory structure, consider arcing a tar file.
GNU tar has been ported to the ST and is widely available, at least on
unix hosts. changes to very well established procedures should be very
well thought out.

=We also have to be sure that the archives can be read on other
=machines, since sysops may need to examine ST archives on BBS's
=run on other machines.  For example, I run a BBS on a Unix system, and
=I had major problems compiling ZOO.

not everyone has FTP access, so before a switch is
made, any new scheme should be made available long (say 6 months) before
it is adopted.

=Also, I have had trouble transferring ZOO archives, and I suspect the
=problem is that some protocols don't recognize ZOO magic.  Using ZMDM
=I was unable to download some ZOO archives with Ymodem, although the
=same programs transferred it OK with Zmodem.
=
=Until these problems are cleared up, I see no need to discard the old
=reliable ARC.

agreed...

besides {x,y,z}modem, kermit should be thoroughly tested, too.


=Bill Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division.

-bill
rosenkra@boston.cray.com