zip (was: Re: Disk archival techniques)

[Vintage Computer Festival]

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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers   ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com  || at http://marketplace.vintage.org  ]