Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!van-bc!root
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Atalk III 1.0e
Message-ID: <2170@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 89 18:21:07 GMT
Sender: root@van-bc.UUCP
Lines: 41

In <6872@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>, elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes:
>Note that CP/M generally does not do "chopping", for the simpler
>reason that it is not necessary (all files are already padded to a 128
>byte boundary). Thus my recieved file would be 128 bytes longer than
>it was when I transmitted it... Nasty.

I see... it's 'nasty' to change the length of a file. Well, that's what I've
bitching about for years, a so-called protocol that mungs files if they don't
happen to be CP/M.

>This originally started as a conversation about flaws of the Xmodem
>protocol, in particular, about the problem of binary files that are an
>exact multiple of 128 bytes in length and have control-Z or NUL
>charcters as their last bytes. "all files must become padded" is not
>an accurate description of the problem. Your fix, creating an extra
>block consisting solely of padding, will work, if the reciever does
>normal auto-chopping. But if the reciever does not, e.g.  is a CP/M
>system, you're breaking things. Breaking things is nasty.

Yes, breaking things is nasty. It's just too bad that XModem has survived as
long as it has. If the rest of the world were like the computer industry, we'd
be reading our newspapers on marble slabs.

CP/M is as obsolete as XModem. I certainly wouldn't go two inches out of my way
to ensure that the file would be aesthetically acceptable to a CP/M user,
especially if the padding did not matter on the CP/M system except for that
extra 128 bytes. Let 'em chop it themselves. Those of us who chose not to
bother with CP/M had to find the workarounds for a braindead protocol that was
forced upon us by people who wouldn't know a protocol from a proctologist, and
we'll bloody well stick with those workarounds.

-larry

--
Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on
                  the roof and gets stuck.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                |
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