FTP question on resource forks: OS7 <-> OS9.2.2 <-> OSX10.11

[razo]

If I have a working .AIF file on my SE/30 running OS7.1 and if I send this from SE/30 to an intermediary OS9 G4 to an iMac OSX10.11 via FTP, then edit the .AIF on this iMac in an audio editor, then save it still as an .AIF file and transfer it back to the SE/30 (via the intermediate OS9 macintosh) using FTP would the resource fork of the .AIF file still be intact when it reaches the SE/30?

 

[tappdarden]

Why not try? do a test run.

also, its aif. why does it matter? you can always just manually open it in whatever program on the se/30 you are using it with anyways.

 

[Crutch]

I am probably missing something obvious here but - why would your AIFF file have a resource fork?

 

[Bolle]

That AIFF file in particular will be fine as it should not have any resource forks.

However files that do have resource forks will break when transferred over FTP.

You should always encode them in some way that keeps forks intact before transferring them.

 

[Crutch]

Bolle is correct, but maybe try encoding them anyway, just to see if that makes a difference—is it possible your ftp client is set to do an ASCII transfer only? If using Fetch ensure the “Binary” radio button is selected. 

 

[razo]

I have tried with many different files now but I am not able to transfer uncompressed, readable .AIF files from the iMac to the SE/30. Are you able to do it?

 

[nglevin]

Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) doesn't need a resource fork, as others have said. I'm not sure what .aif is supposed to be, assuming that's another file format and not a typo (EDIT: no, same thing).

If you just make sure to stick the .aiff file extension at the end of the filename, all versions of Mac OS X since Tiger know what to do with it using Spotlight and Uniform Type Identifiers.

Although your data corruption could be happening elsewhere. Assuming it is data corruption and not a typo.

EDIT: .aif seems to be legitimately recognized as a proper extension for AIFF according to the Wiki, I apologize! I could have also queried mdls to find how Spotlight identifies AIF, AIFC and AIFF files. My bad for not doing that.

 

[nglevin]

This is also redundant, but coming from the AIFF Wikipedia entry (which is quite good!) is the original spec for AIFF.

On a Macintosh, the FORM AIFF is stored in the data fork of an Audio IFF file. The Macintosh file type of an Audio IFF file is 'AIFF'. This is the same as the formType of the FORM AIFF.  

Macintosh applications should not store any information in Audio IFF file's resource fork, as this information may not be preserved by all applications. Applications can use the Application Specific Chunk , defined later in this document, to store extra information specific to their application.  

As said above, AIFF, even in the early Apple II and Macintosh form, did not use the resource fork.

If there's anything that uses the resource fork, it might be Finder creator codes, but those have been ignored since Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Spotlight has been handling file associations through its metadata index since Tiger.

 

[LaPorta]

Here is another way to possibly look at it.

What software are you using on the SE/30 to make these AIFFs? Much software from the 7.1 era needed, at a minimum, a type code attached to it. Some required both type and creator code. This is why if you use, say, Word 4.0, and you have a document from a PC copy of 4.0 with ".doc" at the end of it, it won't open it without some hassle. The SE/30 software may be programmed to only accept files with an AIFF type code, and will not accept .aif file name endings.

What you could try and do is open your AIFF file in ResEdit, and add the AIFF type code, and see if that works. If not, open an AIFF that does work on your SE/30 with that program in ResEdit, find out what it's type/creator codes are, and assign those to the file that you got back from your OS X machine. As long as the file hasn't been corrupted, I'd give it a 99.9% chance that that will work.

That is why you eventually had Macintosh Easy Open, MacLink Plus and such to translate these documents without type codes.

 

[PB170]

I wrote this reply before I saw LaPorta's post, but didn't get a chance to post it before the forums went offline earlier this week. Same idea as in LaPorta's post but expressed a little differently:

I suspect that what's happening is that the files loses/don't get any type/creator codes when they move outside the classic Mac world. The type/creator codes tell the Finder and applications what file type the file is and what application created it, and are stored in the file system (not in the resource fork). If this information is missing, the Finder and most applications won't be able to open the file.

If my assumption is right, you need a way to add this information to your files. The Apple control panel "PC Exchange" (originally a separate product but included with the system from version 7.1.1 and later) aids in associating file name extensions (.aif etc.) with Macintosh type/creator codes. Another way is to use one of the many utilities that can edit the type/creator info, such as ResEdit.

I've been using a utility called Typical 1.0 for many years. Is simply lets you rename the application with desired type/creator codes, separated with a period and then drop any files onto the app in the Finder to have them acquire the codes. I duplicate the application (only a few kb) for any file types I need and paste the target document's icon onto it (along with a description in the comment field when using OS 9).

 

[razo]

Finally updating to OpenTransport 1.1.2 solved it. I am able to open WAV files, but not AIFF files.

 

[LaPorta]

Try the above.

 

[razo]

I forgot to mention, the audio editor I have installed is Alchemy v3 in OS7.1. None of the file associations in Finder for the transferred sound files are correct, they both show up as document type, but this is not so cruical since I am able to open the WAV files from within Alchemy.

Another observation is that when I used zip-disks to transfer WAV and AIFF files to the the exact same thing happens; I could only open the WAV files. I think PC Exchange plays a role here because if my memory is right I was not able to read WAV files either before installing PC Exchange (but it only seems to convert the WAV files correctly and not the AIFF files). So, probably some creator/type code/information is missing for the AIFF files when they go from from OSX10.11 to OS7.1 that PC Exchange is not able to correct, but that is ok as long as I am able to open WAV files.

Usng ResEdit for each file will be too timeconsuming when working on lots of files.

The reason for trying to get FTP to work was that the ZIP disk not an alternative for file transfers as it was not reliable. sometimes, when the zip disk is connected, I get the grid pattern on startup and the SE/30 freezes, even though have recapped the logic board - not sure why this happens..

 

[nglevin]

There's several freeware apps out there that can change type and creator codes. The ResEdit suggestion was mostly to get a giant dump of the resource fork so you could see what was going on there.

SoundEdit 16 used to ship with one on its CD-ROM, I think it was FileTyper. You can create little drag-and-drop apps with it, "droplets", where you can drag all your .WAV or .AIFF files to give them the right creator code.

SoundEdit 16 is very cool btw but that's just the author's opinion!

 

[PB170]

Another observation is that when I used zip-disks to transfer WAV and AIFF files to the the exact same thing happens; I could only open the WAV files. I think PC Exchange plays a role here because if my memory is right I was not able to read WAV files either before installing PC Exchange (but it only seems to convert the WAV files correctly and not the AIFF files). So, probably some creator/type code/information is missing for the AIFF files when they go from from OSX10.11 to OS7.1 that PC Exchange is not able to correct, but that is ok as long as I am able to open WAV files.

Did you open PC Exchange? (In the Control Panels folder). If you do, it will let you add a file extension, pick one of your installed apps and choose one of the its supported file types in a list.

 

[PB170]

I just found this, which might explain the issue you’re having:

A variant of the AIFF-C file format (dubbed AIFF-C/sowt) was introduced by Apple after the company started to use Intel processors in its personal computers. The file header and its numerical fields still use big-endian byte order, but the PCM data for AIFF-C/sowt uses little-endian byte order. The sowt compression type is an alternative to the NONE compression type for PCM data.
(http://www-mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/Documents/AudioFormats/AIFF/AIFF.html)

I’ve been using AIFF files from OS X in System 7 extensively for many years without any problems, but only from OS X 10.4 on PPC.

 

[CC_333]

SoundEdit 16 is very cool btw but that's just the author's opinion!

Are you the author?!

c

 

[nglevin]

Oh no, author of that post. :-D

I am not Steve Capps or any one of that app’s caretakers at Macromedia.

 

[razo]

Did you open PC Exchange? (In the Control Panels folder). If you do, it will let you add a file extension, pick one of your installed apps and choose one of the its supported file types in a list.

Hi. i just saw your answer: That might explain why AIFF files that are edited on OSX10.11 are not possible to open from within Alchemy, but WAVE files are (I assume here that the WAVE files has not changed format) - I might be on thin ground here though..

I am not able to open the AIFF or WAVE files (i.e. recognizing that it is with doubleclicking on any of the two filetypes from within the 7.5.3 Finder. (AIFF and WAVE files that are edited in OS7.5.3 in Alchemy I can doubleclick on in Finder and they are automatically opened in Alchemy.) But I guess that has to do perhaps with creator-codes (or something like that) not being kept in OSX versions later than 10.4.x when transferred between machines, so the Finder does not know which program to associate the files with.. perhaps