Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!samsung!uunet!dg!dg-rtp.dg.com!dave From: dave@mystie.webo.dg.com (David Kopper) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Frequently Asked Questions (and answers) of comp.sys.apple2 - part 1 Keywords: FAQ, questions and answers Message-ID: <1267@dg.dg.com> Date: 25 Jan 91 15:06:07 GMT Sender: root@dg.dg.com Reply-To: dave@mystie.webo.dg.com (David Kopper) Organization: Data General Corporation, Westboro, MA Lines: 682 [Last edited on January 25, 1991] I would like to thank Larry W. Virden for his help with this document. ======================================================================== Hi! Welcome to the comp.sys.apple2 newsgroup! This article contains the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) often seen in comp.sys.apple2. I am posting this article (once every three weeks or so) to help reduce the volume in this newsgroup and to provide hard-to-find information of general interest. I hope it answers some of your questions. * Table of Contents: (contents were reordered) What is comp.sys.apple2? What is INFO-APPLE? What are the comp.binaries.apple2 and comp.sources.apple2 newsgroups? * What is BinSCII? What is Executioner? What is Shrinkit? * What is a .Z, .bsq or .shk file? (some common filename extensions) What are the Apple II FTP sites? What is APPLE2-L? What is FTP? What is BITFTP? What is Kermit? * What is the current system disk? * What are technotes? What is APDA? What Apple II magazines are there? Recent Apple Computer Announcements and Changes Future questions for the FAQ * Editors Notes + indicates questions new to this article * indicates questions/answers with changes of content since the last issue Note: This is the first half of the frequently asked questions (with answers), the other half should be the next article/posting. I broke the FAQ in half and posted now because there are a fair number of sites that did not receive the three previous attempts to post it (its size was probably the problem). ======================================================================== Subject: What is comp.sys.apple2? What is INFO-APPLE? Comp.sys.apple2 is a Usenet newsgroup that was created for the discussion of the Apple II series of computers. This forum provides a way for interested people to compare notes, ask questions, and share insights about Apple IIs. It works by users posting a message via specialized software to a local file on their system, and that message being passed along to all of the 30,000+ other systems around the world that share Usenet files. INFO-APPLE is a mailing list that is maintained on some networks other than Usenet. Comp.sys.apple2 messages are sent to INFO-APPLE and INFO-APPLE messages are sent to comp.sys.apple2. The central location of INFO-APPLE is at apple.com Thank you, Apple Computer! I believe that the same kind of thing is being done for ProLine. Could someone please fill me in on some details? Does anyone know of other folks doing the same thing for other networks? On BITNET, LISTSERVers are available to distribute the mail messages. It works by maintaining a list of users who wish to see the messages in their mailbox. To subscribe (or (sadly) unsubscribe): send your request to info-apple-request@apple.com . Please do not send subscription requests to info-apple@apple.com!!!! To post a message to the thousands of readers of INFO-APPLE (and comp.sys.apple2) subscribers send their messages to INFO-APPLE@apple.com . There is no need for comp.sys.apple2 users to do this - they can use the standard posting features of Usenet. There is no need to subscribe to INFO-APPLE when you are getting comp.sys.apple2, since the messages are identical. Posting commercial/advertising is not only discouraged, it is not allowed under the rules of the Internet portion of the group. Since comp.sys.apple2 and info-apple are linked, commercial messages should not be sent on either of them. Instead, Usenet users can post their needs to misc.forsale.compute misc.forsale, or misc.wanted. Does anyone know what the Internet and BITNET folks are supposed to do? ======================================================================== Subject: What are the comp.binaries.apple2 and comp.sources.apple2 groups? Comp.binaries.apple2 is a newsgroup used to distribute public domain, freeware, and shareware Apple II software (executables, pictures, sounds, etc...). Software distributed on comp.binaries.apple2 is expected to be a BinSCII text file of Shrinkit archives. Comp.sources.apple2 is a newsgroup used to distribute public domain, freeware, and shareware Apple II source code. There are guidelines on the format in the comp.sources.apple2 newsgroup. Contact jac@paul.rutgers.edu for details. Discussions concerning the software posted in these groups, or the methods of accessing this software, or the archiving of this software, or any OTHER discussions that you could possibly dream of (and in fact many discussions that you would NEVER dream of seeing!) are to be held in comp.sys.apple2 . NO DISCUSSIONS, QUESTIONS, PLEAS FOR HELP, DISGRUNTLED OBJECTIONS, OR OTHER NON-RELATED MESSAGES ARE TO GO TO THESE GROUPS. Note: Distributing commercial software is a crime - just don't do it! ======================================================================== Subject: What is BinSCII? This is a program which takes an Apple file and converts it to a format suitable for transfer via email or 7 bit file transfer. The output is not self contained - one must use BinSCII on the receiving end to convert the file back into usable format. Advantages of BinSCII are that the files tend to be smaller (than the same file ran through Executioner, a similar program), and the conversion back into binary can be done without having to strip off mail headings, converting line feeds to carriage returns or executing a binary program that may not be a text decoding program. BinSCII also will break up your file into smaller pieces and is able to put the pieces back together without the user having to be careful what order he does things. Note 1: BinSCII does not keep track of what parts of what files you have and have not already decoded. This is a future enhancement. In the meantime, either watch that every segment is decoded, or use sciibin -v (show info only) to examine the text file before downloading and decoding. Note 2: Programs such as ShrinkIt do not currently know how to decode BinSCII. Use an un-BinSCII-ing program before attempting to extract the pieces. The current version of BinSCII is 1.0.3. The user interface isn't very pretty, but it's being worked on. Version 1.1 will be revamped and will support future enhancements pending in 2.0. Version 2.0 will change the encoding format drastically, making BinSCII portable to other systems. Encoded files will be interchangeable between any two implementations of BinSCII (for example: encode a file under Unix and decode the file on a Macintosh). When version 2.0 is available, its sources will be distributed (written in C). BinSCII was written by Dave Whitney of Zlink fame. Sub-Subject: Where can I get a copy of BinSCII? BinSCII is available via ftp from tybalt.caltech.edu (or any of the ftp sites listed later). BinSCII is occasionally posted to comp.binaries.apple2. One more place to find BinSCII is on the APPLE2-L listserver (file Apple2-L 89-01123). Todd Whitesel has re-encoded version 1.0.3 in a self-saving method similar to Executioner but more reliable. Grab that version (on tybalt) first and then you can easily decode future updates (which will be posted in both Executioner and BinSCII 1.0 formats). Sub-Subject: "Shrinkit won't do anything with the file I just spent X hours downloading. Why not?" If you have a text file in your hands that has some lines resembling: FiLeStArTfIlEsTaRt ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789() GBINSCII AQhmAAAAA8)4MIAI02DA9ARMQEDtAQhmAIVZ gYITA6u7xADA0MjM3YTNBlDOENkQwYURzITM2UDN5gzNDJUQGVERyEDM1QzM4cjN CFUOFR0QxAjR0MjM3YTNBlDOENkQwAQRzITM2UDN5gzNDJUQGVERyEDM1QzM4cjN .. then you've got something encoded by BinSCII. You must decode *all* the parts using BinSCII before attempting to extract using Shrinkit. On the other hand, if you have a file which resembles: begin 666 nonsense.bny M4W5N3U,@4F5L96%S92 T+C$@*%-$4U0V,"D@(S@Z(%1U92!/8W0@.2 Q,CHS M...3HT.2!%1%0@,3DY, HT and more lines like that, followed by an: end then you have a uuencoded file. This is going to be tougher to decode. See the Apple II archives for at least one Apple IIgs uudecoder program. On the third hand, if you have a file which resembles: (This file must be converted with BinHex 4.0) :$&4)48C28N0&,P0*9!"6593K8dP8)3%!!!#L@!!!!!!Qie0*9#%!!3!!SPKb6'& e!3!!!!!!!!!#!!P8D'8J4QpbBf9P)IN33)(4$N#"d4K!JG%S!!!!!`!'VfJ!"VP then you have a BinHex file. This is going to be much tougher to decode. The GSCII+ NDA by Derek Taubert decodes BinHex files on an Apple IIGS. You can also use a macintosh program to do the decoding (StuffIt, possibly BinHex). There is also a Unix implementation of BinHex called mcvert. Sub-Subject: Is there a Unix version of BinSCII? SciiBin is a C implementation of a BinSCII decoder. It works well under most Unix or Unix-like operating systems, AOS/VS and MSDOS. Note: SciiBin can only decode a BinSCII file! It cannot encode a binary file into BinSCII format. SciiBin version 1.10 was written by Marcel J.E. Mol. Version 1.20 had several corrections by Dave Whitney. The current version is 1.30 by Bruce Kahn. This version corrected a fair number of bugs and was a port to AOS/VS (where byte pointers are different than word pointers) and MSDOS (under Microsoft C v5.1). ======================================================================== Subject: What is Executioner? Executioner was the standard program that converted Apple II files into text to be mailed/posted. It is no longer considered the standard on comp.binaries.apple2. Executioner was like BinSCII, in that it translated an Apple II file into text to be send via email or 7 bit wide transfer methods. Only the 4 bit mode was safe to use (other modes used characters that got translated incorrectly between machines on the network). Currently, Executioner is typically only used to distribute BinSCII. Some older files in the various archives may also be encoded with this program. To translate an Executioner text file to an Apple II file required that you delete the mail headers/trailers, translated the newlines into carriage returns, download the file to your Apple II and from Applesoft Basic, type the command 'EXEC ' where is the name of the file you downloaded. Note: After the last line of the Executioner text, there needs to be a blank line. This blank line indicates the end of the text that gets translated back into an Apple II file. Executioner was written by Glen Bredon, of ProCMD and ProSEL fame. Sub-Subject: Long directions to extract a file in Executioner format. (I'm assuming that you can edit a file before you download it. If this isn't the case, do all the editing after you download it and translate the new lines to carriage returns - kermit can do this translation for you). First lets determine if you have an executioner file. The first line after all the headers (mail addresses, text, etc...) will be: CALL -151 If you have found a CALL -151 then you probably have an executioner format file. Delete all the lines above the CALL -151 so that it is the first line of the file. Now edit the other end of the file. You should find something like a line string of numbers (and letters) followed by a blank line which is followed by a BSAVE command and then a E00G command. Make sure that the blank line contains no characters (other than the newline to get the blank line). Delete any lines that may follow the E00G command. These are typically signature lines. Make sure that there are no spaces before the text of each line (1,$<< in vi). Save the file to be downloaded. Note: If you edited the file on your apple, then you must make sure that you write a text file back to the disk (A save command from AppleWorks isn't good enough, you'll have to print the file to disk from AppleWorks). Now translate the new lines to carriage returns. On Unix systems the command is: tr '\012' '\015' < inputfile > outputfile Other possible methods to do the translation is to download using the kermit program (it can translate new lines to carriage returns for you) or a program on your apple. I believe that the davex shell has a TR command that can do the translation for you. I also believe that there are several other programs that can do the translation for you. List is a file browser that can print to disk. TextDragon works on the IIGS. Use whatever method you can, just get the new lines translated into carriage returns. Download the edited/translated file - I'm not going into any detail here. Just get the file downloaded. You may have already completed this step, if you had to edit/translate the file on your apple. Just get the edited/translated file onto a disk for your Apple. Boot ProDOS and get into Basic, then set the prefix so the edited/translated file is available. Now type 'exec filename', where filename is the edited/translated text file. You should see a ']' prompt followed by lots of '*' prompts. A while later, you will see couple more ']' prompts then everything should stop with a ']' prompt. You should see a new file in your directory. If the filetype is wrong (it may have to be a particular type, for BinSCII it must be type SYS), then you can try the EXEC command again - which will probably work the second time. An alternative (if EXEC doesn't do the trick) is to change the file type with file type changer. An example will probably help, so lets try to walk through one. The following is a 'edited' file that I just got from the APPLE2-L listserver (actually file APPLE2-L.87-00031) - my editing was simply to make its size manageable for this example. Note: The '****'s are to mark the start/end of the file and are not actually contained in the file itself. Here is the file: ************************************************************************* Date: Sat, 15 Aug 87 23:14 EST Reply-To: Apple II List Sender: Apple II List From: SEWALL@UCONNVM Subject: Chameleon 2 of 2 files cham.exe (EXEC under ProDOS)-----------Cut Here-------------------- CALL-151 E00:38 A5 FF D0 32 D8 20 8E FD AD 30 BF 8D 6A 0E 20 00 BF C7 6D 0E 0D 80 02 E18:D0 1D 20 00 BF C5 69 0E B0 15 AD 81 02 29 0F AA E8 8E 80 02 A9 2F 8D 81 E30:02 20 00 BF C6 6D 0E A2 08 B0 0E 20 00 BF C3 70 0E B0 06 A2 26 20 53 0E E48:AA 20 53 0E 4C D0 03 20 ED FD E8 BD 59 0E D0 F7 60 A0 F3 E1 F6 E5 E4 8D E60:00 C5 F2 F2 EF F2 87 8D 00 02 00 81 02 01 80 02 07 7E 0E 01 FF 00 20 00 E78:00 00 78 AE 00 00 0B C3 C8 C1 CD AE D3 D9 D3 D4 C5 CD 00 F00:D8 A0 00 84 FF 88 84 E0 A9 0F 85 E1 20 67 FD A0 00 A2 FF 20 2F 0F E6 E0 F18:D0 02 E6 E1 0A 0A 0A 0A 91 E0 20 2F 0F 11 E0 91 E0 45 FF 85 FF 90 E4 E8 F30:BD 00 02 09 80 C9 A0 F0 F6 49 B0 C9 0A 90 17 69 88 09 20 C9 FA B0 0C 68 F48:68 E0 04 B0 BF 98 91 E0 4C 69 FF 18 29 0F 60 F00G A90885A420732090242039FB2058FCA200BD9220F00620EDFDE8D0F5200CFDA9 008DF2038DF3038DF4036CFCFFE6A4A5A4C96F90CFA9008DFCBFA9018DFDBFA0 28B94D209900028810F74C0002A9028508A9088509A9C08506A9208507A000B1 . . . A0B7D1D78D8DDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDF DFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDF8D002C10C02C00C010FB2C10C060CC BSAVE CHAM.SYSTEM,A$1000,L$4C3C E00G ************************************************************************* Since I found the CALL -151 command, I know its an executioner format file. Now I do all my editing on it and the result looks like the following: ************************************************************************* CALL-151 E00:38 A5 FF D0 32 D8 20 8E FD AD 30 BF 8D 6A 0E 20 00 BF C7 6D 0E 0D 80 02 E18:D0 1D 20 00 BF C5 69 0E B0 15 AD 81 02 29 0F AA E8 8E 80 02 A9 2F 8D 81 E30:02 20 00 BF C6 6D 0E A2 08 B0 0E 20 00 BF C3 70 0E B0 06 A2 26 20 53 0E E48:AA 20 53 0E 4C D0 03 20 ED FD E8 BD 59 0E D0 F7 60 A0 F3 E1 F6 E5 E4 8D E60:00 C5 F2 F2 EF F2 87 8D 00 02 00 81 02 01 80 02 07 7E 0E 01 FF 00 20 00 E78:00 00 78 AE 00 00 0B C3 C8 C1 CD AE D3 D9 D3 D4 C5 CD 00 F00:D8 A0 00 84 FF 88 84 E0 A9 0F 85 E1 20 67 FD A0 00 A2 FF 20 2F 0F E6 E0 F18:D0 02 E6 E1 0A 0A 0A 0A 91 E0 20 2F 0F 11 E0 91 E0 45 FF 85 FF 90 E4 E8 F30:BD 00 02 09 80 C9 A0 F0 F6 49 B0 C9 0A 90 17 69 88 09 20 C9 FA B0 0C 68 F48:68 E0 04 B0 BF 98 91 E0 4C 69 FF 18 29 0F 60 F00G A90885A420732090242039FB2058FCA200BD9220F00620EDFDE8D0F5200CFDA9 008DF2038DF3038DF4036CFCFFE6A4A5A4C96F90CFA9008DFCBFA9018DFDBFA0 28B94D209900028810F74C0002A9028508A9088509A9C08506A9208507A000B1 . . . A0B7D1D78D8DDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDF DFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDF8D002C10C02C00C010FB2C10C060CC BSAVE CHAM.SYSTEM,A$1000,L$4C3C E00G ************************************************************************* I execute the 'tr' command on my Unix system and download the resulting file. Once I get it to my IIGS, then (from Basic) I type: EXEC FILE Lots of '*'s later I find CHAM.SYSTEM on my disk. (BEEEP) This concludes the test of the emergency executioner translation example. ======================================================================== Subject: What is Shrinkit? This is a program which takes one or more Apple II ProDOS files and 'archives' them into a NuFX archive. ShrinkIt typically shrinks the members of the NuFX archive with variations of the LZW (Lev-Zimpel-Welch) compression algorithm. Shrinkit has many options, such as whole disk compression, disk formatting, displaying text files, etc. Shrinkit also has the ability to extract BLU files members - more on BLU in a couple of questions. The current revision number of Shrinkit is 3.0.3. The IIgs version of Shrinkit is named GShk (the current version number is 1.0.4). GShk can do all that Shrinkit can do and more. Some of the additions are the ability to unarchive different archive types (Unix compress, PC Arc, Mac StuffIt) and the ability to create/extract Apple Single files - this is becoming more significant as resources are being used more frequently in IIgs software. GShk requires System Disk 5.0 . For specialized extractions, more than 1 meg of memory may be required. Shrinkit+ and UnShrinkit+ are two programs for the Apple II+. Shrinkit, GShk, Shrinkit+ and UnShrinkit+ were written by Andy Nicholas . Sub-Subject: What is nulib? Nulib is a C implementation of Shrinkit 1.0.2. It also works very well under most Unix or Unix-like operating systems. Nulib was written by Andy McFadden . Sub-Subject: What is BLU? BLU is the predecessor of Shrinkit. The goal of BLU was to take one or more Apple II ProDOS files and 'archive' them into a single Apple II file, maintaining the ProDOS file type information. It could perform a Huffman compression on the individual pieces if the user so desired. The resulting files were named Bunny files (.BNY). BLU files that were compressed were .QQ files, with a Binary II header they were .BQY files. The current use of BLU is in telecommunications, where the filetype information is preserved. This is why you can find archives that are Shrinkit (or NuFX) archives wrapped in a BLU header. BLU was written by Floyd Zink, Jr., of Tex fame (Tex is a text file browser). Also, the Binary II format is by Gary Little. ======================================================================== Subject: What is a .Z, .bsq or .shk file? (some common filename extensions) Filename extensions are simply the addition of more characters to the end of a filename (thus the extension). An example could be FRED.SHK. 'FRED' is the base filename. '.SHK' is a filename extension that happens to indicate that the file is probably a NuFX archive and you will need to run ShrinkIt to determine/extract its contents. Sometimes you will find multiple filename extensions, simply take the filename extensions apart one at a time and you should be able to reconstruct the original file. The following is a table of some of the filename extensions that you may encounter during your trips to Apple II ftp sites: Extension What does it usually mean --------- ---------------------------------------------------- .SHK The file is usually a NuFX archive created by ShrinkIt. Use ShrinkIt to extract the files. .QQ The file is usually a huffman encoded file created by BLU or possibly SQZ (If I remember correctly). .BSQ This is usually a BinSCII'ized ShrinkIt file. or Use BinSCII to extract a NuFX archive, then use .BSC ShrinkIt to extract the files. .BXY This is usually a NuFX file wrapped in a Binary II header. .BNY This is usually a BLU archive file. ShrinkIt can be used to extract its contents. These were previously referred to as Bunny files. .BNY This is a BLU wrapped ShrinkIt archive. Use or ShrinkIt to extract the files (it will automatically .BNX go past the BLU header to extract the NuFX archived files). Note: This filename extension is found on GEnie. .EXE The file is usually the output of Executioner. To extract the file, simply 'EXEC' it from Basic Note: You may need to use DOS 3.3... it depends on the file you are extracting (sometimes they will contain a note which will tell you). .Z The file was compressed with the Unix compress command (LZW compression). Use the uncompress command to get the file. Alternatives include using GSHK (GS ShrinkIt) to uncompress or the APW/ORCA UNCOMPRESS utility (available at ftp sites). .tar The file is a Tape ARchive created under Unix. Use tar to extract the files (tar xvf filename) or if you don't have to extract the files, simply run them through another program. .tar.Z The file is a combination of the previous two items. You would need to uncompress the file, then use tar to extract the members. I have found ShrinkIt archives as BinSCII files in a tar archive that was compressed. Seems strange, but you may find a XXX.BSQ.tar.Z file somewhere. Good luck in your file decoding! ======================================================================== Subject: What are the Apple II FTP sites? Here is a list of the sites that have Apple II software available by anonymous FTP. It is current as of 11/5/90. Site Name Site Number Directory -------------------- -------------- -------------------------- apple.com 130.43.2.2 pub/DTS/aii ummts.cc.umich.edu 35.1.1.43 pc5: shark.nosc.mil 128.49.80.1 ker*mit. watsun.cc.columbia.edu 128.59.39.2 kermit/a brownvm.brown.edu 128.148.128.40 listserv.193 f.ms.uky.edu 128.163.128.6 pub/appleII wuarchive.wustl.edu 128.252.135.4 usenet/comp.binaries.apple2 tybalt.caltech.edu 131.215.139.100 pub/apple2 plains.nodak.edu 134.129.111.64 pub/appleII avalanche.berkeley.edu 128.32.234.22 pub/Apple2 isca 128.255.19.175 unix/apple2 [I'd like to thank Todd A. Bakal administers APPLE2-L (Thanks Chris!) ======================================================================== Subject: Are there other electronic mail file servers? Yes! Much like Apple2-L works in bitnet, there are electronic mail servers on internet. I only know of the one at the following address: archive-server@plains.nodak.edu The idea is that you send simple commands in the mail message. Start with the following message: help index appleII Note: The filenames are case sensitive on this particular file server. You must be aware, however, that if you request the 'send' of files, you must first be sending the files to a computer that has access to uudecode and (if you request multiple files) tar (the unix tape archive utility). [I'd like to thank Joe Toth for his pointer to this mail file server] [The frequently asked questions (with answers) is continued in the next posting.] [Last edited on January 25, 1991] Dave Kopper Internet: dave@mystie.webo.dg.com or: dave%dgc.mceo.dg.com@relay.cs.net Apple II Forever! GEnie: D.Kopper