Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Universal machine-readable format? Message-ID: Date: 17 Aug 90 14:36:25 GMT References: <1990Aug15.165518.16675@phri.nyu.edu> <1926@tkou02.enet.dec.com> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 30 > If you had to send some data in machine-readable form to somebody > (perhaps many, unspecified, people), but had no idea what kind of machine > they had, what format/media would you use to maximize the probability that > it would be readable by the recipient? I don't know much about the tape formats, but a single file on a low density QIC cartidge would cover that. I would send 4 floppies: IBM-PC format, 3.5" 720K. IBM-PC format, 16 sector/track, 5.25", 320K. tar format, 16 sector/track, 5.25", 320K. CP/M format, 8", 250K. The first can be read by Amiga, Atari ST, and Macintosh users as well as IBM-PC 3.5" format. The second can be read by the rest of the IBM-PC users, plus CP/M users with 5.25" disks. The third can be read by pretty much any UNIX system with a 5.25" floppy drive. The fourth can be read by pretty much any CP/M system that couldn't read #2. If you lay the file out right, it will also be readable by UNIX systems with 8" drives if they're willing to diddle the file some. With a bit of care you could probably put an appropriate tar header in the boot track, then another one just before the data for the file... that'd be a neat hack. To UNIX it would look like 2 files in a tar archive, the first containing all the CP/M disk structure... -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com (currently not working) peter@hackercorp.com