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From: cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: MSDOS uploads to SIMTEL20 for month of June 1990
Message-ID: <46wTL4w162w@cybrspc>
Date: 5 Jul 90 09:21:14 GMT
References: <3908@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN
Lines: 43

sonny@charybdis.harris-atd.com (Bob Davis) writes:

> >In article <70VoL1w162w@cybrspc> cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) 
> >>w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Keith Petersen) writes:
> >>
> >>> SIMIBM.ARC    B  263121  900624  SIMTEL20 MSDOS files listing with...
> >>> SIMIBM.IDX    A  461706  900624  SIMTEL20 MSDOS files listing with...
> >>                   ^^^^^^
> >>Keith, would it be possible to make SIMIBM.IDX available in a compressed
> >>format? I usually order the SIMIBM.ARC, just to reduce the load on the
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >>mailserver. Having SIMIBM.IDX in an arc would be very handy
> 
> Perhaps you might like instead to download SIMIBM.ARC, which is 200K
> lighter, and includes SIMIBM.IDX as one of the component files. I have
> often wondered why one would download SIMIBM.IDX rather than SIMIBM.ARC.

As I emphasized above, I do exactly that! However, there are 2 reasons
for preferring to download SIMIBM.IDX in compressed form:

1) SIMIBM.IDX will compress to less than SIMIBM.ARC, as shown here:
SIMIDX   ARC   212550   7-05-90   4:05a

2) I already have all those extra programs!

>       I have always found that SIMIBM.ARC is THE most important
> single file to download for guiding one's access to the massive
> SIMTEL DOS collection.

A point to which I must agree... but I still don't need to move a new
copy every time I update my index. Compressing SIMIBM.IDX would save me
about 65k of uuencoded mail space, thus lightening the demand on the
net. (actually, I use SIMTEL35 to manage my index, so I really don't
need those extra programs at all)

I'm sure that SIMTEL generates SIMIBM.IDX by some automated means, and
updates SIMIBM.ARC in a similar manner. I'd bet that SIMIDX.ARC would be
a line or two added to the shell script.
--
    Roy M. Silvernail   | 'I don't see why you people    | Opinions found
    now available at:   | seem to think this is magic... | herein are mine,
 cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu | Its just this little chromium  | but you can rent
(cyberspace... be here!)| switch here...[click]'         | them.