Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    How would you distribute the Fish software, electronically or on
    disk?  If on disk, how would you send them?  If electronically,
    how would you distribute the blank disks?

    I too was just thinking of this the other day...as a recent hire
    to dec, away from my original source of fish disks, I'm having
    withdrawal.  My local store (back in NC) had them for copying.
    It was always great to see a new list come out...now I just have
    Fish envy :-(
    
    Couldn't we set up some kind of distribution through interoffice
    mail??  Electronic would be ok too., but 100+ disks at 880k...
    Hmmm...no small storage requirement.
    
    Anyway, My $.02 is to get one or two people to volunteer to make
    copies, and forward actual disks to those interested.  after all,
    can't have too many disks :-)
    
    scott.
    
    

    re .2
    
    U got it!
    
    What I had in mind is a pool of perhaps 30 people who would like
    to get all the fish disks as they come out. We could have some kind
    of tree/acyclic graph distribution pattern so each person would
    copy n disks m times each and pass them on....
    
    The other thing is the expense, which can go way down if you buy
    disks in bulk and split the cost of the new fishes (fishi?) among
    30 or more people. Unfortunately, only 2 responses is a little
    disheartening, but we'll wait and see.
    
    Please, everyone post the # of disks you want and I'll see what
    kind of deal I can do. I'm going for 50 to 100 myself.
    
    dov

Sign me up...

I was just looking through the notesfile to see how one would go about getting 
Fish disks. 


John

    Me too.
    
    (BTW does anybody have #'s 76 & 77 [the two with the draco language]
    looks like something I want to check out)
    
    					Rob

    Well, Steve (ELWOOD::) Peters and I were talking today, thinking
    about how we could put all of the FISH disks on-line.  We can get
    the space, the wquestion is really how to do it!...I thought maybe
    something like SDBackup, but the problem is really how to organize
    the data into "disks"...We can get the data, and upload, but lets
    face it...having to "arc all the dirs, and upload them all individually
    is less than optimal...
    
    So I'm looking for some of that great pool of knowledge to leap
    to the rescue...All ideas will be given the appropriate merit :-)

    Seriously...anyone have any ideas?
    
    Scott  (DTN 237-2961)    

 re: -.1
    
    BY the way, even if we do get them on-line, I still think we should
    see some support for a "group" purchase of floppies!  After all
    do YOU have enough spares! (can you say: "Never enough spares"
    ...I knew that you could ;-)

    There's a disk-transfer utility called 'TRACKER' that will allow
    the transfer of an entire disk as a single file.
    
    I've never used it, but I'll get it from PLINK and have a look to
    see if its feasible.
    

    re: .8
    
    I was just about to mention the same utility 'TRACKER'. It's on
    Fredfish #35. 

    If I remember, it does a block by block copy of the disk, ignoring
    any sectors that are all zero's. Thus you do get some compression
    and can also xfer a disk as a few files or as one big file. This
    would be a much faster and easier method than my backup program.

    The only disadvantage is that if any one requires only one particular
    file from a fredfish disk that he would have to down load the whole
    disk to reconstruct the file system.

    /Steve Drew        
    

    I'll look into to it...
    
    As for convienence (sp?), I feel that this is out-weighed by
    convienence, but what do the others think?  Maybe making arc files
    of each directory is the way to go...storing each disk on VAX disk
    as a directory tree?  Comments??  Is this a pipe dream??  Do people
    even care if this stuff is collected, and put On-line??  Are there
    less of us out there than I thought??
    
    scott.

    re: .10
    
    depends on how much time you want to spend setting this up.  ARCing
    each directory on 100+ disks doesn't sound like much fun.  TRACKER
    sounds like a better approach for the initial setup.
    
    If TRACKER is written in C, maybe a file lister and extractor could be
    written for VMS/Ultrix/whatever.  Then if you still wanted to arc
    the directories, you could do that with command files on something
    a tad faster than the Amiga.
    
    A full disk, 880K, might take a while to download.  Perhaps it should
    be also be ARCed, since a large part of the usual fish disk is source
    code and documentation.
    
    One small problem with TRACKER - what about single disk drive Amigas?
    If the TRACKER file + TRACKER is too large to fit in memory, how
    do you create a fish disk from it?
    
    -dave
    

    well looked into tracker a bit tonight...only the exe included!,
    but hte basic idea in the docs is to just take track range specified
    and write to a single file!...the doc suggests breaking it up into
    10 track segments which works out to about 116k (with all the other
    info added to make it a file, etc., and to allow tracker to put
    it back in the right place.
    
    Empty sectors are NOT skipped (re: -.?) but during ARC, they would
    be severly compressed.
    
    This might be better than ARC'ing each dir, but it does have a lot
    of disadvantages too.  I don't know...maybe some physical distribution
    would be better?  But some how I can't give up yet on having all
    this on-line...actually, some mechanisim to allow the vax to manipulate
    the data would be ideal...
    
    Thinking more on this (Hope I don't wear out the little gray matter
    I have left :-), and looking for additional comments.....scott.
    

    Why not do things this way:
    
    Keep track of what directory everything is in.  Put everything in
    one directory and arc that.  Then, create an execute file, and add
    that to the arc file.  User downloads 1 file, arc's it and executes
    the execute file.  Execute file creates subdirectories as needed,
    and copies the files to thier directories, and the deletes them
    from the root directory.  Get the general idea?
    
    						Rob

    
    Being the owner of a one drive 500 (just ordered a second floppy
    last night, though) it isn't a problem downloading a complete drive.
    You just end up swapping disks forever and a day... Hell, you'd
    do that just looking at a FishDisk anyway!
    
    Personally, I'd say it doesn't matter that the download will take
    longer using Tracker. If it isn't convienent for whoever is willing
    to take the time to do the uploading then this whole thing will
    fall apart anyway! Whatever is easier for the uploader is what we
    should do! Actually, if the disk is pretty full (and most of his
    are, aren't they?) then it won't make much difference. I think most
    of us are willing to a take a whole disk to get one item, I know
    I am.
    
    -Ray
    
    ps I'd be willing to check out a mass purchase of floppies. Can
    never have enuf!
    
    

    
    I don't think my 512K Amiga would be capable of unarcing an entire
    disk!
    
    I vote for keeping the directories on the vax.  It might be simpler
    to get the source to one of the existing transfer protocols (KERMIT,
    XMODEM, etc).  Modify it so that it will handle directory
    specifications.  This shouldn't be that difficult since it will
    be a hack (i.e. we only need to support transfer's to the VAX).
    
    For that matter, while we're at it, if we're going to create something
    custom like this why not throw in the code to do the compression on the
    fly?
    
    just a suggestion,
    
    steve mcafee

    Just a small note about uncompressing an entire disk
    
    MOUNT P:
      ...
    (go into your favourite terminal emulator - Smokey of course :-)
    (download file going to P:DISK.TRACKER_FORMAT)
      ...
    % cd df0:			# DF0 has destination disk
    % brun vd0:Tracker -UnTrack_switch p:DISK.TRACKER_FORMAT
    
    
    Or, if the disk is Tracked THEN arc'ed,
    
    (download file going to P:DISK.ARC)
     ...
    % cd p:		# so the results of UnArcing will stay in P:
    % brun vd0:arc x p:DISK.ARC
    % cd df0:		# DF0 contains the destination disk
    % dir p:		# See what the unarced file is called - say DISK.TRK
    % brun vd0:Tracker -UnTrack_switch p:DISK.TRK
    
    Get the idea? Multitasking + pipes - ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!
    
    .E

    
    re: -1
    
    Sorry to continue on this tangent, but do you have the latest version of
    P: and is it any better than Matt Dillon's PIPE: device? 
    
    I should have realized I could do this on a 512K amiga.  I guess
    it just slipped my mind.
    
    - steve mcafee

    
    
    	Because I get to upload the data, I did some test last night.
    I created a sequence ( command file ) and a short program that will
    take the directory of a FF disk, create a sequence file, execute
    it. The result is arc files on RAM: for each directory plus a
    arc file TOP.ARC for everything in a top level directory.
    
    	Now for the problems.
    
    I'm using an old arc. What is the newest version ??
    
    File names are too long for arc. Any suggestions ?
    
    Arc names are too long and have special characters. any ideas ?
    
    Some software has sub-directories, ???
    
    
    	One BIG help
    
    Is there a file-tranfer program ( kermit, xmodem ) that I could
    get to run from a command file ??
    
    
    	Steve Peters
    

    I think there's a modified version of ARC that handles large file
    names.  There's another modified program that de-ARCS to any
    subdirectory that you specify.
    
    I'll have to double check the Plink data library to be sure...
    
    Ed.
    

    2 options for arc'ing long file names.
    
    1) include an execute procedure to rename them back to the longer
    names.  I have seen several .arc files that do this, and as long
    as there are not many files to do, it seems to be ok
    
    2) try ZOO'ing the files.  Supposedly this gives a smaller file
    size than arc, and i think it allows long names.  (I'll have to
    check for sure).  I found zoo on genie and also on several local
    bbs's.
    
    				Rob

    I've been doing a lot of teleshopping, or at least trying to, and
    have been unable to reach the places I used to call. It seems that
    many of the 800 numbers do not exist. Perhaps that was too expensive
    to keep up. In any case, can anyone recommend places to call.
    Preferably LARGE volume kind of places. If anyone knows the number
    of Sony, Maxell, or any of the big name manufacturers, I'm interested.
    Also, if you know the number for Disk World, or any other large
    distributor, please post. I'm willing to do the dealing, but I need
    some help on the research.
    
    Thanks,
    dov

    Why such quantities?  My needs are well served by Lechmere's periodic
    $16.95/10 Sony DSDD w/ labels, etc.  This is better pricing than
    mail order to date considering shipping.	John.

    I get my disks (DSDD Sony's) from a place called Price Club. Price
    Club is a big warehouse that certain goverment workers, bank workers
    and non-profit organizations have privilege to. 
    
    If you know of it and have access to it, you can pick up a box of
    15 disks (strange to sell them in boxes of 15) for $24.
    
    Chris

My experience:
	Princeton Diskette
	800-426-0247
	in NJ (201)840-8911
Quantity 200 Sony DSDD 3 1/2" $1.17 each
good price, includes labels and sleeves BUT
the labels are for 5 1/4" disks (the small ones!)
and the sleeves are only half-height, ie they only
come up far enough to cover the metal cover, not
too functional except for their shipping, I toss 'em.
Delivery was in two days, I think there was around
a $5. shipping charge.
Clyde

    Actually, if you check note 762.3, Abel Supply sells DSDD Sonys
    for $1.35 ea. in bulk w/ no minimum order.  Never ordered them myself,
    but lowest price I've found.
    
    Andy Humphrey