Re: packing disk copy 4.2 disk images for the web?

On 23-apr-07, at 17:52, Ray Arachelian wrote:
>
> 1. I'd put all of a set of related disks together. i.e. LOS3.1 + LOS
> 3.1 tools in one archive. Why, it's 2007. Bandwidth is plentiful.
> Requiring a person to click on multiple items for downloading is silly.
> Separating the tools from the operating system is just silly. It's
> unlikely that someone would want just the tools or just the OS.
>

At the moment i have not a complete set of los tools for either 3.1 or 3.0.
i'ts a mix. the majority is 3.0. Were there a complete set of tools for 3.1 or
just a few updated tools?

what are the differences between 3.0 and 3.1 anyway. Reading through online documentation i have not yet come to the info about that. But i've heard that there was a previeuw of lisawrite 3.2 back in 1985 or about

> I'd put third party Lisa software, as rare as they may be, in separate
> archives, however.
>
> I'd even put all of the languages used by LPW in the same archive, and
> as future archives are found, add them to the existing one, adding a
> note that this was updated on a specific date adding whatever disk.
> Again, each virtual floppy is only 400K, much less compressed.

That was my general idea as well. It is cumbersome to check if all the images were downloaded properly

> I'd even put Mac the Mac OS floppy along with the MacWorks boot disk.
> You want something that is known to work well together. If you have
> multiple versions of Mac OS + tools, add them all in. i.e. MacWorks
> Boot, System 4, System 5, etc. but don't go crazy building a huge
> archive of software. (It might be worth it to have a 400K MFS floppy
> for use on Lisas running MacWorks with archiving/connectivity tools
> such
> as StuffIt Expander, CompactorPro, ZTerm, and other useful
> freeware/shareware available as well since MFS is hard to use on
> anything running higher than System 6.0.8 - but that should be separate
> from the MacWorks archives.)
>

An extra's floppy would'nt hurt. the concensus is that we have to focus on a person having only a beige G3, being the last mac with a floppy drive and being of 1998, is quite "new" so will last longer. it is good that the emulator is around to prolong that experience.

> Similarly, I'd pack all of the Xenix files into the same archive. I
> would not separate out Lyrix, nor the development packages.
>

there is somewhere a unusable xenix DART set online where the images are zipped...
i wiil try to get good working copies of those floppy's.
>
> 2. I'd separate archives by versions as well as product. i.e. LOS3.0
> is
> separate from LOS 3.1, LPW is separated from LOS.
>

yes indeed. Let it be clear to the unexperienced user what he needs.

>
> 3. For the archive medium, I'd use StuffIt 1.5 as there is open source
> code to extract from these (google for unsit.c), that way they can be
> opened by StuffIt or Expander on an old Mac and physical floppies made.
> StuffIt archives also remove the need for MacBinary II or HQX wrapper
> as
> StuffIt/Expander can deal with it anyway.
>

Stuffit 1.5 it will be. the problem with self extraction is that a resource fork is added, rendering a zipped version useless on non-mac systems.

And we don't know what mac osx 10.5 and up will do with forked files...

> I would NOT make the SIT files self extracting as this would likely
> cause trouble on systems other than classic 68K Macs.
>
>
> 4. Before making the SIT archive, I would drop all of the disk images
> onto FileTyper or similar and set the appropriate creator/type for Disk
> Copy 4.2.
>
>
> 5. All the disk images should be Disk Copy 4.2. This is important so
> as
> to allow the creation of real floppies for use on a real Lisa with the
> proper number of bit-slip sync bytes. It is fortuitous that the LisaEm
> prefers this format, however, it can also handle DART images properly.
> Running DART to restore disk images on a Mac whose formatting routine
> does not produce the proper bit slip will cause problems for a real
> Lisa. So, always, always, always stick to Disk Copy 4.2, not DART, not
> Disk Copy 6.x, not anything else.
>
> Also, unlike DART, Disk Copy 4.2 stores all of its data inside its data
> fork. DART stores checksum information in a pair of resource forks.
> To
> properly ship DART by itself (outside of a SIT archive) would require
> at
> least a MacBinary header. Without it the image is broken. If you
> extract a DART file on a windows or unix machine, the resource fork
> would be stripped and you would then only be able to use the resulting
> file with the emulator - you would be unlikely to be able to restore it
> to a real floppy later on.
>
> Disk Copy 4.2 images will survive being extracted on unix/windows and
> then being transferred back to a real Mac. You'd need to use FileTyper
> to reset the Creator/Type file info, but beyond that, it would restore
> just fine to a real floppy.
>
>
> 6. I would also provide copies (if possible) of StuffIt expander for
> classic Mac OS, Win32, the unsit.c for unix, Disk Copy 4.2, DART 1.5.x,
> FEdit, FileTyper, and lisafsh-tool along with the archives.
>

a download utilities folder is on the way

>
> 7. I would also include archives of the ROMs separately. These can be
> useful not just for the emulator, but also incase someone has a bad
> EPROM on their Lisa, or has had theirs exposed to too much UV light,
> etc. This means the I/O and video ROMs as well, and having copies of
> all the known versions of the ROMs would be helpful. i.e. D,F,H,3A,
> the
> 800K floppy ROMs, etc. any Apple II or III software useful for
> low-level
> formatting ProFile or Widget drives, and the special ROM to do that,
> etc.
>
>

as soon as they are available i will add them. i only have a regular h/88 around.

>
> BTW: ZIP would also be a nice archiving format as every modern system
> supports it, including OS X. The OS X Finder's Archive command
> produces
> ZIP files. The big issue here is that while there are unzipping tools
> for Classic Mac, they're a bit alien and not as native by default as
> SIT
> files, but they do exist.
>

maybe Zip is ok. downloading will be done on a newer machine anyhow. unpacking on this newer machine is then the way to go

-- 

met vriendelijke groet

Simon Claessen
simski_at_email.domain.hidden


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