woody@udcf.glasgow.ac.uk (Ian Woodrow) (05/09/91)
I've seen plenty of goodies in the groups which are nicely packed into ascii files so they can be mailed. I've unpacked MAC and IBM stuff before but WHAT IS THE drill for amiga software ? I copied some stuff down from the binaries group yesterday (it was in 4 parts) and ran it thru 'sh' to produce 4 zuu files (.zuu01 thru 04 ). So NOW WHAT ? Where do I get the prog to convert this to amigable binaries AND do I need to concat all the parts into one big file first before decoding ? The files are now on my sun workstation. Next question: Can amigas normally read ibm ps2 formatted discs ? << I don't have an amiga - my friend does >> Please e-mail the answers to me to make it quicker (so I don't have to wait for it appearing on the newsgroup - post it there too of course). Thanks, -- W@@DY_______________________________________________________________________ /Ian Woodrow, Computing Service, Uni of Glasgow, GLASGOW G12 8QQ, Scotland \ * <Dog 'n' Bone: 041-330-4800 | e-mail: woody@udcf.gla.ac.uk> * \__________________________________________________________________________/
tadguy@abcfd01.larc.nasa.gov (Tad Guy) (05/10/91)
woody@udcf.glasgow.ac.uk (Ian Woodrow) writes: > I copied some stuff down from the binaries group yesterday (it was > in 4 parts) and ran it thru 'sh' to produce 4 zuu files (.zuu01 thru > 04 ). So NOW WHAT ? ``IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN'' -- Giant, "Twin Peaks" How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings Sun Aug 12 20:52:16 EDT 1990 1. How a submission is packed Each comp.binaries.amiga submission is packaged using the Zoo archiver. Zoo not only compresses the submission, but also checks the files for corruption, and preserves the original directory structure and timestamps. The Zoo archiver is available from most Amiga archive sites and BBS's. Binary submissions and Zoo files contain 8-bit data, which cannot be reliably transferred over USENET or by mail. The Zoo archive is thus encoded down to 7-bits using the ``uuencode'' program. The ``uudecode'' program, required to reverse this encoding, is also available from many Amiga archives (often under the name ``uucode''). USENET has a conventional limit of 64k bytes per posting. While larger postings often occur, they are also often mysteriously corrupted at some point. Unfortunately, most of the uuencoded Zoo archives in comp.binaries.amiga are larger than 64k bytes. In order to get each posting to 64k or smaller, the single uuencoded Zoo archive is ``split'' into 64k pieces, which can later be concatenated back into the original uuencoded Zoo archive. The UNIX ``cat'' and the AmigaDOS ``join'' commands are ideal for this. Each part of the now-split uuencoded Zoo archive is then wrapped using some simple UNIX commands in a form called a ``shell archive''. This makes the postings easier to unpack on UNIX systems, and can be unpacked on Amiga's using the UNSHAR or SH utilities, available from some amiga BBS's. At this point, a single submission has been Zoo'ed, uuencoded, split, and each part shar'ed. This is what you find posted to comp.binaries.amiga. 2. Unpacking the postings Before a submission can be used, it must be unpacked in the reverse order it was packed. This is easily done on UNIX machines, and can be done on Amigas with the appropriate utilities. 1. Save each part to a different file name of your choosing. 2. Remove the USENET headers (the first line of each file should be ``#!/bin/sh''). This step can be skipped if you have the ``unshar'' utility. 3. Run each file using ``sh'', or ``unshar''. This will create a series of files ending in ``.zuuxx'' where ``xx'' is a number. Each of these files is part of the uuencoded Zoo archive. 4. Concatenate these files into one file (typically ending in ``.zuu''). This is the whole uuencoded Zoo archive. 5. Decode the uuencoded Zoo archive using ``uudecode''. This will generate the original Zoo archive. 6. Use Zoo to extract the files from the Zoo archive. Typically, it's easiest to do steps 1-5 on a UNIX machine, although utilities exist to do all those steps on an Amiga. Once you have a Zoo archive, though, you will probably find it easiest to transfer the archive to your Amiga and use Amiga Zoo to extract the archive there. 3. What do I need? All these tools mentioned in this article are free for the taking if you can find them: . The Zoo archiver is available from almost all Amiga BBS's and Amiga archives on the Internet. . The uuencoding utilities are often already installed on UNIX machines, and there is also at least one Amiga version, which typically goes under the name of ``uucode''. . Concatenating the parts of a submission is easily done under UNIX with the ``cat'' command, or under AmigaDOS with the ``join'' command. . Finally, the Bourne Shell in UNIX (/bin/sh) can be used to unshar the postings, and similar utilities exist for the Amiga, notably ``UNSHAR'' and ``SH''. 4. How do I make a submission? The role of the moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga is to receive submissions, ensure they are not copyrighted (or if they are, to ensure that permission is granted to redistribute them), and to repackage the submission in the form described above. Persons wanting to make submissions to the these groups do NOT need to worry about following the above instructions (although doing so makes my job easier and means the submission will get out faster) . It is important to note that binary submissions must be encoded into 7-bits to insure it is received intact. This can be done using the ``uuencode'' utility described above, or with any number of similar utilities (such as ``btoa''). There are two ways to get your submission to the moderator: . Post your submission to the appropriate newsgroup. If your USENET software is properly configured, this will automatically forward your submission to the moderator, without your having to know the moderator's address. This is probably the most intuitive method. . Mail your submission to the moderator's address. This requires that your know the moderator's address, but is the only choice for persons at sites with improperly configured USENET software. If your submission is received by the moderator, you will get notification back by mail (although network problems may cause your submission or the acknowledgement to be delayed). If you don't get an acknowledgement within a week, assume something has gone wrong. The best course of action is to attempt to contact the moderator by email (please don't send your submission again, instead hold onto it until you and the moderator determine a reliable way for you to send your submission). Submissions to comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga may be mailed to: amiga@uunet.uu.net or ...!uunet!amiga Consult your system administrator if you have trouble sending mail to these addresses. Comments and suggestions are welcome. They should be addressed to ``amiga-request'' (instead of ``amiga'') at the addresses above. My thanks to Bob Page <page@eng.sun.com> and Patrick White <patbob@sequent.sqnt.com> for the original documents I have blatantly plagiarized in preparing this article... ...tad