Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!mintaka!dcw
From: dcw@lcs.mit.edu (David C. Whitney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Macintosh-->ProDOS
Message-ID: <1990Feb22.163908.11004@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 22 Feb 90 16:39:08 GMT
References: <1011@spock.UUCP> <14002@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1990Feb20.212421.22124@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> <14020@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
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Organization: MIT Spoken Language Systems Group
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In article <14020@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> MARCELO@phoenix.princeton.edu (MARCELO) writes:
>In article <1990Feb20.212421.22124@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> 
>toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:
>> The format conversion performed by AFE is across file system formats,
>> which all have their own way of storing text files, and that is what AFE 
>puts
>> on your ProDOS disk -- a text file which when you read it will look just 
>like
>> the text file did on the mac.
>
>Fine I never said that AFE didn't do that .. But you have to remember the 
>file that you are converting TO Apple ][ format is allready in ][ format 
>.. You are making AFE think that the file is in Mac text format (which it 
>isn't) and then trying to convert it to ][ format (it was to begin with) 
>.. So you see taking a file that is in ][ format and then trying to 
>convert it back to ][ format without converting it to Mac inbetween yeilds 
>something that neither tha Mac nor the ][ will understand ..

This is the biggest non-issue since Macs and //s both store TEXT in
exactly the same way. I believe that AFE doesn't transfer resource
forks, so that's not a problem. Since the file was not fiddled with by any
mac software, running at through AFE to get it onto a prodos disk will
do NOTHING to the file.

How do I know this for certain? I've done it. Actually, I have the
file on a unix machine, stored with LF as the line terminator. I use a
gatorbox to pull it over to a mac. The gatorbox converts the LFs to
CRs. I then use AFE to get the file on a prodos disk. Works fine. In
addition, if we're talking about BinSCII files, then it matters even
less since BinSCII ignores EVERYTHING before the line FiLeSt... and
any character not in the translation alphabet. In other words, unless
AFE random sticks in capital A's, then BinSCII doesn't care what
happens. (I thought of this stuff when I wrote it...)


--
Dave Whitney
dcw@sun-bear.lcs.mit.edu  ...!mit-eddie!sun-bear!dcw  dcw@athena.mit.edu
My employer pays me well. This, however, does not mean he agrees with me.
I wrote Z-Link & BinSCII. Send me bug reports. I use a //GS. Send me Tech Info.