Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!kth!draken!chalmers!tekno.chalmers.se!d83_sven_a
From: d83_sven_a@tekno.chalmers.se (Sven (Sciz) Axelsson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Shouldn't StuffIt implement atob/btoa?
Message-ID: <604@tekno.chalmers.se>
Date: 9 Mar 89 00:03:15 GMT
Organization: Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
Lines: 24

Consider this as an open letter to Raymond Lau and all StuffIt users:

This truly marvellous program is now the de-facto standard for file compaction
and use in file transfer for the Macintosh. It among other things implements
the BinHex4 protocol for transferring a binary file into ascii characters.
As you all know, this is the way all the good stuff in the comp.binaries.mac
archieve is stored. As mr. Lau says in the StuffIt manual, this format
is somewhat wasteful in the way it maps binary bytes to ascii characters.
The Unix programs atob and btoa can do this more efficiently.

Well, mr. Lau, why not go all the way and implementing the atob/btoa protocol
in the next release of StuffIt? I, for one wouldn't mind getting my telephone
bill cut by having less data to transfer through the modem.

What do you think out there? Should we shift the standard? This would also
have the added benefit of allowing us to pick up the (admittedly few) packed
files from the Unix archieves.

+-------------------------+--------------------------------+------------------+
|   Sven Axelsson         |  d83_sven_a@tekno.chalmers.se  |  DISCLAIMER:     |
|   dep:t of Linguistics  |          (^^ best ^^)          |                  |
|   univ. of Gothenburg   |        dlv_sa@hum.gu.se        |  This is not     |
|   SWEDEN                |      usdsa@seguc21.bitnet      |  a disclaimer.   |
+-------------------------+--------------------------------+------------------+