Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ncar!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!symcom!cameron
From: cameron@symcom.math.uiuc.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: How unARC from SIMTEL20?
Message-ID: <32900002@symcom>
Date: 15 Nov 88 17:59:00 GMT
References: <32900001@symcom>
Lines: 35
Nf-ID: #R:symcom:32900001:symcom:32900002:000:1444
Nf-From: symcom.math.uiuc.EDU!cameron    Nov 15 11:59:00 1988


Profuse thanks to the dozen or so people who responded via
email to my question about how to get files from SIMTEL20!
A summary of the information follows.

1. SIMTEL20 is a DEC-20, which is a 36-bit word machine.
   It packs 4 bytes per word, with 4 bits of zero fill.
   So ftp's from such a machine to a byte-oriented machine
   (like my Sun 3/50) must be done in 'tenex', not 'binary'
   mode.  (This was my mistake -- thanks all!)

2. If Kermit is used to move files from the networked machine
   over a modem to a PC, then it must be in "binary" and not
   "text" mode.  (I have run afoul of this before, though not
   this time.)

3. The directory PD1:<MSDOS.STARTER> has (among other things)
   all the encoders/decoders one might need to extract the
   files on SIMTEL20 from whatever formats they're in.
   The extensions mean what they usually do:

       .ZOO  means it was compressed with Rahul Dhesi's ZOO.EXE
       .ARC  archived with PKPAK.EXE, unarchive with PKUNPAK.EXE
       .LBR  concatenated with LU.EXE, break up with LUE220.COM
       .?Q?  squeezed with SQPC.COM, unsqueezed with NUSQ.COM

4. More details are in the file SIMTEL-ARCHIVES.INFO from the
   default anonymous ftp directory.

Thanks again to all who took the time to respond.  Depending on
how long this note is kept before expiration, you shouldn't have
to answer the same questions again for a while! :-)

--Cameron Smith
  cameron@symcom.math.uiuc.edu