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From: barmar@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Don't use PackitIII
Message-ID: <3225@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 14-Sep-86 06:44:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3225
Posted: Sun Sep 14 06:44:03 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Sep-86 20:10:09 EDT
References: <932@tekig4.UUCP>
Reply-To: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 24
Keywords: packit binhex compression shareware

In article <932@tekig4.UUCP> bradn@tekig4.UUCP (Bradford Needham) writes:
>Please don't post stuff in packitIII format.  The existing BinHex protocol
>is sufficient for sending Mac binaries.

You seem to be confused about the relationship between PackIt and
BinHex.  PackIt does NOT implement an encoding scheme, as BinHex does.
It provides a way to compress and package multiple Mac files into one
file.  After packing, the resulting file must still be hexified so that
it may be transfered easily (i.e. as a text file).  PackIt and BinHex
work very well together, providing important but othogonal functions.

I believe that in the past, the general rule for use of PackIt has been
to only upload PackIt I files, not PackIt II or PackIt III, because the
later versions are not free; users who try to download PackItII/III
files would be required to pay.  I think the difference is that version
I had no compression or encryption.

I haven't seen the program on the net, but someone mentioned that there
is a free program that unpacks PackIt II files.  If this were posted,
then the above rule could be relaxed.
-- 
    Barry Margolin
    ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
    UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar