19 May
2005
19 May
'05
10:33 a.m.
From: "Randy McLaughlin" <cctalk at
randy482.com>
---snip---
It works for the largest base, even for those that are just now ready to
learn.
I am not advocating winzip as a perfect system, just a system that fits my
personal desire to spread archives to as many as want to download them.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Hi Randy
For what you are doing, providing data to users, you are
doing the right thing. For an archive, it is the wrong thing.
For an archive, one should have the least and simplest
amount of encoding or remoteness from the original as
possible. Feeding the information into a form such as a zip
does not meet that criteria.
Providing data to the users in the most universal and current
format is the proper thing for an archivist to do in many
cases ( like you do ). Still, you have shut out many MAC
users and some of those that are so far in the past that
they are still running on a 8080 CP/M machine.
Imagine that some future archivist digs up Sellams library.
He must first realize that he needs something that interprets
x86 instructions to unwind the encoding. He then has to figure
out what the purpose of the data was.
Many here have made the assumption that the information would
smoothly be moved along to the next current media and retranslated
to the next handy compaction or encapsulation tool.
The real world isn't like that. There will be gaps in the
maintenance. For many reasons, like budgets or just apathy.
A good archivist need to do the best to anticipate this
and consider this as part of their strategy.
Dwight
19 May
19 May
10:50 a.m.
On Thu, May 19, 2005 at 10:33:26AM -0700, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
For an archive, one should have the least and
simplest
amount of encoding or remoteness from the original as
possible.
Yes, but now we can argue semantics until the cows come home. What
*is* the simplest amount of encoding, and more importantly, what is
the *original* itself? Is it ASCII? If so, is it ASCII in a file
on a disk, or printed out on paper? Is it just the letters
themselves? Or is it the *information* represented by the ASCII
that is the original? How far up do you want to go? The ideas
represented by the communicated information?
That's why I find format discussions so frustrating. If I write an
article discussing some programming topic, and I do it in a straight
text editor and save as an ASCII text file on a floppy disk, and
then compress that file using RAR (which adds error-correcting code
to the archive) and distribute it online, what is "the original"?
Is it the RAR archive... or the extracted text file... or the
information itself contained in the file?
Still, you have shut out many MAC users
No, it's a .ZIP file. ZIP for Mac has existed since the early 1990s
and as I wrote before there is a source code distribution ZIP
archive extractor so...
and some of those that are so far in the past that
they are still running on a 8080 CP/M machine.
...they can compile the ZIP extractor from source. Unless the 8080
CP/M machine doesn't have a C compiler, in which case it would most
likely have no reason whatsoever to extract the data in the first
place (common practice is to extract it on a capable platform, then
transfer over to the older machine).
Imagine that some future archivist digs up Sellams
library.
He must first realize that he needs something that interprets
x86 instructions to unwind the encoding. He then has to figure
out what the purpose of the data was.
I think figuring out the purpose will be exponentially harder than
finding an x86 box to extract the data. Besides, as previously
discussed, the x86 factor is moot due to the availability of
source-code archive extractor distributions.
Many here have made the assumption that the
information would
smoothly be moved along to the next current media and retranslated
to the next handy compaction or encapsulation tool.
The real world isn't like that. There will be gaps in the
maintenance. For many reasons, like budgets or just apathy.
A good archivist need to do the best to anticipate this
and consider this as part of their strategy.
I do agree with you on this point. I just think shouting "ASCII
only" is too short-sighted.
--
Jim Leonard http://www.oldskool.org/ Email: trixter at oldskool.org
Like PC games? Help support the MobyGames database: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or taste a slice of the demoscene at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
12:41 p.m.
On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 12:50 -0500, Jim Leonard wrote:
That's why I find format discussions so
frustrating. If I write an
article discussing some programming topic, and I do it in a straight
text editor and save as an ASCII text file on a floppy disk, and
then compress that file using RAR (which adds error-correcting code
to the archive) and distribute it online, what is "the original"?
Is it the RAR archive... or the extracted text file... or the
information itself contained in the file?
it's whatever the furthest-back thing in the process that lets you
recreate any later stages is, I suppose. So in your example, the ASCII
text file is the original; anyone could make a RAR file of that at a
later date should they so want to.
cheers
Jules
10:57 a.m.
From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 12:33 PM
I obviously need to make the directions clearer: Many MAC & Linux users
have emailed be asking to send them particular files in different formats so
they could decompress it. So far when I restate that just by renaming the
file they can use it, they try and it works. I have yet to find any of the
files I put in a self extracting archive that everyone using anything close
to current hardware can't extract.
This means that the only systems that can not extract the archival data
meant for classic computers are the classic computers themselves :-(.
Limiting the archives to the tools available for the machine it is meant for
would exclude the people that need it most, "Windoze only" users need to
have their hands held to get started. I expect people with 20-30 years of
computer experience to be able to handle both classic & current tools.
As far as any of this goes I expect that just as I have repackaged the data
From:
"Randy McLaughlin" <cctalk at randy482.com>
---snip---
It works for the largest base, even for those that are just now ready to
learn.
I am not advocating winzip as a perfect system, just a system that fits my
personal desire to spread archives to as many as want to download them.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Hi Randy
For what you are doing, providing data to users, you are
doing the right thing. For an archive, it is the wrong thing.
For an archive, one should have the least and simplest
amount of encoding or remoteness from the original as
possible. Feeding the information into a form such as a zip
does not meet that criteria.
Providing data to the users in the most universal and current
format is the proper thing for an archivist to do in many
cases ( like you do ). Still, you have shut out many MAC
users and some of those that are so far in the past that
they are still running on a 8080 CP/M machine.
Imagine that some future archivist digs up Sellams library.
He must first realize that he needs something that interprets
x86 instructions to unwind the encoding. He then has to figure
out what the purpose of the data was.
Many here have made the assumption that the information would
smoothly be moved along to the next current media and retranslated
to the next handy compaction or encapsulation tool.
The real world isn't like that. There will be gaps in the
maintenance. For many reasons, like budgets or just apathy.
A good archivist need to do the best to anticipate this
and consider this as part of their strategy.
Dwight from cards/tapes/disks/scans of print outs/etc in the
future the zip/tar/etc
packages will be repackaged again.
I have some archives that are archives of archives and intend to go back and
extract the original archives into un-packaged treed directories then
repackage into just a zip format so that future users don't have to figure
out the zip format to then have to figure out the myriad of CP/M
packaging/squeeze formats.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
12:14 p.m.
On Thu, 19 May 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote:
This means that the only systems that can not extract
the archival data
meant for classic computers are the classic computers themselves :-(.
Limiting the archives to the tools available for the machine it is meant for
would exclude the people that need it most, "Windoze only" users need to
have their hands held to get started. I expect people with 20-30 years of
computer experience to be able to handle both classic & current tools.
Why does this even need to be so? Can't you offer a ZIP archive if that's
what you insist on, but also just have a link to a directory right next to
the ZIP download link that has the contents of the archive uncompressed?
It seems this would solve everyone's problem, and also make the archive
more stable for the longterm.
I have some archives that are archives of archives and
intend to go back and
extract the original archives into un-packaged treed directories then
repackage into just a zip format so that future users don't have to figure
out the zip format to then have to figure out the myriad of CP/M
packaging/squeeze formats.
Why bother packing it at all? Just leave it in it's unadultered original
format. Bandwidth and disk space is cheap, and is only getting cheaper.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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12:40 p.m.
From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at siconic.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 2:14 PM
On Thu, 19 May 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote:
Bandwidth and disk space is cheap if someone else is paying for it ;-)
Packaging archives is useful for so many reasons:
Effort of copying the data to the server and creating an organized
structure, anyone that's been to my site knows how much effort I need to put
into organizing it as is without adding more to do.
Downloading whole chunks rather than piecemeal helps to preserve the data.
No matter the cost packaged files take up 10% of the needs of unpackaged
material. I still use dial-up at my house so it would be impractical for me
and others to handle the 1000% increase in upload/download times.
I do not have a perfect answer, I try to accommodate as many as is
reasonably possible.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
This means that the only systems that can not
extract the archival data
meant for classic computers are the classic computers themselves :-(.
Limiting the archives to the tools available for the machine it is meant
for
would exclude the people that need it most, "Windoze only" users need to
have their hands held to get started. I expect people with 20-30 years
of
computer experience to be able to handle both classic & current tools.
Why does this even need to be so? Can't you offer a ZIP archive if that's
what you insist on, but also just have a link to a directory right next to
the ZIP download link that has the contents of the archive uncompressed?
It seems this would solve everyone's problem, and also make the archive
more stable for the longterm.
I have some archives that are archives of
archives and intend to go back
and
extract the original archives into un-packaged treed directories then
repackage into just a zip format so that future users don't have to
figure
out the zip format to then have to figure out the myriad of CP/M
packaging/squeeze formats.
Why bother packing it at all? Just leave it in it's unadultered original
format. Bandwidth and disk space is cheap, and is only getting cheaper.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage
mputers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at
http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
7158
days inactive
7158
days old
5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
cctalk＠randy482.com -
dwight.elvey＠amd.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
trixter＠oldskool.org -
vcf＠siconic.com