Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!ucbvax!MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA!jrv%sdimax2
From: jrv%sdimax2@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith.z100
Subject: Re: Banning ARC files.
Message-ID: <8809161727.AA17804@sdimax2.menet>
Date: 16 Sep 88 17:27:11 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 82


My personal preference would be to get the SEA vs PK court decision
reversed.  The SIMTEL-20 archives may be fixable by standalone programs
running in the background, but there are .ARC files on millions of
floppy disks, too.  Converting them requires manual operations.

If we must change formats, I think we should think about potential improvements.
I would suggest improving the archive itself by:

	Including a printable character mode.  There are still a lot of
	seven bit wide communications channels.  It would certainly help if
	there was a compressed format that did not require an eight bit
	wide path.

	Storing full pathnames in addition to file names.  This would make
	an archive a better backup format.  The unpacking program should be
	able to use or ignore the pathname.

	Allowing longer file names.  MS-DOS (and OS/2?) restrict names to
	8+3 characters, but UNIX names can be longer.

	Including a DES encryption option.  

I would also suggest improving the pack/unpack program:

I'd like a program that treats an archive exactly like a subdirectory. 
Starting the program would "open" the archive.  It would then accept
the standard DOS commands DIR, TYPE, and COPY, except that references to
"current directory" would be interpreted as "this archive", and
references to "parent of this directory" would be interpreted as "the
directory containing this archive".  Full pathnames would be treated
as usual.

For example,
	
	UNPAK alpha
		starts the program and "opens" alpha.pak (or whatever
		extension is chosen)

	DIR    
		lists names and characteristics of files in the archive

	DIR  *.c   
		lists names and characteristics of .C files in the archive

	DIR ..\*.bat  
		lists names and characteristics of .BAT files in the directory
		containing the archive
	
	COPY ..\*.c
		adds to the archive all the .C files in the directory containing
		the archive

	COPY *.doc ..
		unpacks the .DOC files and puts them in the same directory
		as the archive

	COPY *.com \bin
		unpacks the .COM files and puts them in subdirectory \bin
		on the current drive

	TYPE foo.bar
		unpacks the indicated file and displays it on the screen

	BYE
		closes the archive and terminates the program

Essentially, I'm trying to avoid continually retyping the name of the
program and the name of the archive.

It would also be nice to be able to copy files from one archive into
a second without unpacking in the middle.

There's probably a market for a full-screen point-and-click type
user interface too, but that should be a second program.  The primary
program should be restricted to a TTY interface so it's portable.

I think now's the time to comment on these suggestions and bring
up others so the next archive will be not only different but BETTER.

                             - Jim Van Zandt
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