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OK, one downloads his 68k software from the internet, onto a mac running OS 8.0, with the version of stuffit that comes with 8.0. one expects that he would be able to unzip the file, but NO, it has been encoded for the bloody last version of stuffit to ship for classic, and you are SOL when it comes to getting the software onto your 68k. I propose we set a standard, and decide upon which version of Dropstuff to encode your stuff with.

thats all for now.

*end rant*

CCC

I have had this problem also, you download old software & then told you can't extract it because your computer is too old!

You then try to use your newer computer & this works, you then try to connect them via Apple talk which fails, so you open your computers up & swap the hard drives & this still fails because your old computer dosn't read can't read the drive.

erm now I have proudly taken over this rant & you just all wait until I'm a stand-up comedian then I'll put the world to rights.

shaktiman

The thing is most people here have newer macs they can unzip the software with.

Whats the average amount of macs each person has? I have 2 68k's and 2 PPc's

I think that we should abandon Aladdin's format altogether: each version seems to be encoded in a different way and there is no easy way to distinguish between them.

An excellent alternative is SunTar and MacGzip. SunTar will use MacBinary encoding on each file, then combine all of the files into a tarball. MacGzip is used for compression.

The benefits: you can decompress these files almost anywhere, may that be on a Macintosh (even with StuffIt), Windows, Unix, etc.; there is zero chance of corrupting files since an unarchived file will be left in MacBinary II format if the platform cannot understand it (and because tar and gzip do not depend upon resource forks).

Aladdin has show customer disservice time and time again by forcing their customers to upgrade if they want to maintain compatibility. I say that we should dump them since there is a viable alternative.

I've never really run into Clinton's problem, though, but iThink that's probably because I always use the version of StuffIt! Expander 5.5 you can (or used to be able to) download from Aladdin Systems' website. I just install it over the built-in one.

Probably IMHO, the only sure-fire way of compressing files so that they can be used on "any" computer is to make them self extracting and then encode to MacBinary II. That way, the proper decompression algorithm is built right in. Then all you'd need is something to decode the MacBinary II.

The only trouble you might run into there (GOD knows I have) is that you are low on hard drive space and don't have enough for the MacBinary II file and its decoded counterpart. But that's just all in the fun of liberation!

*NEVER* encode a non-OSX app into a device image! Have pity on those of us who haven't got OSX yet. Plus, this saves the extra step of decoding in OSX and then re-encoding in Toast or old Disk Copy before moving to your target machine - for those of us who do have OSX.

The Lightning Stalker

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