Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!haven!adm!smoke!w8sdz
From: w8sdz@smoke.BRL.MIL (Keith Petersen)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Why ARC?
Message-ID: <12175@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 18 Feb 90 19:35:54 GMT
References: <2572@sactoh0.UUCP>
Reply-To: w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil (Keith Petersen)
Organization: The SIMTEL20 Archives
Lines: 30

In article <2572@sactoh0.UUCP> mholtz@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark A. Holtz) writes:
>I noticed that aprx. 95% of the files stored on simtel20 are stored
>in a ARC format. The question is, WHY?

Because Phil Katz (or anyone else) has not released a C language version
of a ZIP file maker (yes I know about UNZIP.C).  I have been unable to
find the Unix C language version of LHARC.

In order to maintain the archives at SIMTEL20 I have to be able to view,
extract, and make archive files.  That limits me to ARC, since it is
the only fully implimented archiver available.  I don't like it any more
than you do.  It's inefficient and slow.  When users upload ZIP or LHARC
files I have to download them to my PC, convert them to ARCs and
re-upload.  That's a lot of extra work for me.

About the small number of ZIP and LHarc files which are in the
collection - they were not converted because the authors requested that
they be distributed in a particular archive format, or because they
contain subdirectories which are not supported by the version of ARC we
are using.

SIMTEL20 will convert its entire MSDOS collection to ZIP or LHARC as
soon as a full implimentation of either is available in C language.

Keith
-- 
Keith Petersen
Maintainer of SIMTEL20's CP/M, MSDOS, & MISC archives [IP address 26.2.0.74]
Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil, w8sdz@brl.arpa  BITNET: w8sdz@NDSUVM1
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