Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    George,
    
    You've done pretty well so far.  There's no need to unpack individual
    files from ZOO archives -- you can do that on your Amiga.  Your next
    step is to find out how to make a PC-formatted disk and write to it
    from SOFTPC.  SOFTPC may or may not support writing to double-density
    (720K) diskettes.  If not, look around for the program PCDISK, which
    does support double density.
    
    I would try the following.  On the Amiga, use DOS-2-DOS to format a few
    disks as IBM double density disks.  At the office, shorten the Amiga
    files' names to 8 characters plus 3-character suffix maximum, i.e.
    ABCDEFGH.ZYX.  Find out how to use your workstation's floppy drive from
    inside the PC emulator, or from PCDISK.  Then fire up the emulator and
    copy the files over to diskette.
    
    One last note:  if files on the diskette don't unpack or run cleanly on
    the Amiga, then you will have to experiment with changing the VMS file
    format of the Amiga files on the workstation, using CVTARC.
    
    Sorry to be so vague, but I've found that almost anything having to do
    with downloading involves a lot of trial and error, and different
    "magic" procedures work for different people depending on their VAX
    setups.
    
    Wes

    
    Does it make any difference if I un-zoo or un-arc file on my VAX or at
    home on my Amiga. It's easier for me to do it on the VAX and I was just
    wondering if this was important ????????
    
    
    
    							Geo.

    It doesn't matter.  Hope you are hand carrying the "unarced" files ;^)
    
    

    It may matter if filenames in the archive are not supported VMS
    filenames (ie multiple '.'s etc...) 
    
    Why not just download the archive and save the time or if hand carrying
    them on floppy you can get more info on a floppy...
    
    John

    I managed to get my first downloaded piece of software working last
    night. I UN-ZOO'd the files here, took them home & used DOS-2-DOS to
    transfer them. Worked fine !!
    
    Now it's time to have a good rumage around TAPE::, etc.
    
    Thanks for the help.
    
    							Geo.

It's loads easier to unpack files on the Ami, as you only have one file
to transer from VAX to PC to Ami as opposed to ALOT!!



Greg

In addition to possibly illegal filenames under VMS and especially MS-DOS
there's also the fact that both Zoo and Lharc can recreate whole directory 
structures plus any flags (hpsarwed) and even Amiga filenotes (Lharc only).

In short: De-Arc on the Amiga if possible.

Cheers,

<CB>

    
    I will copy the De-arc and Un-zoo software today and try in future to
    do as you both suggested and De-arc on the Amiga. I've had some trouble
    trying to fit Un-arced files from VMS onto a 760kb floppy.
    
    						Cheers,
    						       Geo.

	All of what the last few replies said..... plus

	Its usually worth removing any large doc files ("manuals") and
printing them from the Vax, saves down-load time, print time and
unless you have a high quality laser printer at home, usually gets you
a better quality printout. 

	Reg

Re .8:

	I've been doing much of what you are trying to do for the last 5-6
    months.  I recomend the following -

    1.	DON'T extract the files from the archive on the VAX.  You loose the
	file attributes and directory structure if you do and it is no fun
	what-so-ever trying to reconstruct it.  If you only have one floppy
	drive, you'll do a lot of disk swapping, but that's better than not
	being able to do it at all.

    2.	Get MSH off the fish disks or buy CrossDos.  (I use MSH but it Gurus
	about once every week or so.)  This lets you use the IBM formated 
	floppy as the source for an LHARC x operation.  Dos-2-Dos requires 
	that you copy the archive to some intermediate device before you can 
	extract it.

    3.	Get one of the public domain terminal emulators with ZModem.  Even if
	you use primarily sneaker net to do your file transfers, there are
	some things that you will not be able to get physical access to.  See
	also item 4.

    4.	You'll find that even some archives will not fit on an IBM format 
	floppy.  It helps to put as much of the archive on the IBM diskette
	and copy it to an Amiga Format Diskette and then use ZModem to finish
	the transfer.

    5.	You will find that a second floppy drive saves a LOT of hassle.  I got
	the AE high density floppy drive for my second drive.  It works well
	as a normal drive and will even handle some of the archives that will
	not fit on a normal floppy when used in high density mode.  I'm 
	considering getting another one.  (I'm also considering more RAM, a 
	hard disk, A 2000 or 3000, ... :^) )

    Re -.1
    
    In your point 5 you say that 'it even handles files larger than a HD
    disk' - can you please explain. I understood it handled std amiga 880
    kb disks, hd amiga disks but not hd I*M disks. 
    
    If it can handle HD I*M disk sthen it interests me.
    
    regard
    kevin

    I have a question about downloading text files.  I extracted some
    VMS mail messages to a vms file , then downloaded them to my Amiga.
    The file seemed to transfer OK, but I got some funny extra letters
    in the file I downloaded.  The text file looks OK on the VAX and
    I can download it fine on my Rainbow system, so What am I doing 
    wrong ?  I don't have any problems with binary files, just text.

    Thanks  Bob

    Re: .12

    What terminal emulator and file transfer protocol are you using? Also, what
    "funny extra letters" are you seeing? I've had very good luck using ZMODEM
    and VLTjr with both binary and text file transfers. In fact, I always
    forget to set "text" mode in the "File Transfer Mode" selection in VLTjr's
    "transfer" menu, but text files come across just fine. I'm not sure if
    this is a feature of ZMODEM or what, but I thought I read somewhere that it
    auomatically senses the file type and adjusts accordingly. Anyways, since
    you didn't mention that the file structure was all messed up, I don't think
    it's a case of failure to convert file types (RMS to DOS). If you are doing
    just an ASCII capture, perhaps you are picking up noise. In that case,
    you'd be better off using a file transfer protocol that supports some kind
    of checksum or CRC.

    Pete

     I have used Kermit (with and without set file type to block)
    I also tried xmodem. Text and binary transfers.   
     The extra letters end up at the end of most lines.

    example ,  More information on the way;'\oeaxc</][=}{
	       
    Each line will look something like the one above.
    I use the program Handshake for all my transfers.

    Thanks  Bob

    Bob,
    
    I know this isn't what you want, but why bother with text transfers?
    I always compress text files before sending them.   Compress usually
    cuts text files to about 25% of there uncompressed size.  This cuts
    the download time to a quarter of what the text transfer would take.
    
    The down side is you need to convert the files to streamLF before
    running compress so that they will be OK on the amiga.  I've got a
    small program for VMS I wrote a while ago for converting files to
    stream format using callable convert.  You can copy this from
    napier::napier$user:[mcafee]stream.c,stream.exe.
    
    Define this as a foreign symbol and then you can do things like:
    
    stream a.txt
    stream [...]*.*;*
    
    or whatever.  It will only convert files which it makes sense to
    convert so you don't have to worry about it munging .dir's or .exe's.
    It maintains the old file date and version.  A '-v' switch will give
    you a message about each file.
    
    If you have one of the newer modems that do compression, I don't think
    the compress route will buy you anything though.
    
    regards,
    
    steve

    Re: .14

�     I have used Kermit (with and without set file type to block)
�    I also tried xmodem. Text and binary transfers.   
�     The extra letters end up at the end of most lines.
�
�    example ,  More information on the way;'\oeaxc</][=}{
�	       
�    Each line will look something like the one above.

    I'm wondering why you would set Kermit to block mode for text files
    (vs. ASCII), but you did say you tried it without it. If each line has
    crud at the end, it almost sounds like pad characters, but I would
    think they would be nulls, not printable characters.

�    I use the program Handshake for all my transfers.

    For grins I tried Handshake V2.20c to see if I could reproduce the
    problem. The only conclusions I've arrived at is that I've confirmed
    once again that it's not as nice as it could be. I couldn't get Kermit
    (of all things) to work at all (and why no Kermit server support?) and
    I got several visits from the guru during the attempts. The Kermit on
    the Amiga side was the one built in to Handshake and the VMS end was
    Kermit-32 V3.3.111. Then I tried XMODEM with no problems. Since V2.20c
    of Handshake supports the XPR external libraries, I next tried ZMODEM
    and it also worked with no troubles. Just to make sure Kermit-32 hadn't
    bitten the big one, I downloaded xprkermit and tried it with VLTjr
    without a hitch (sorry, but I couldn't tolerate another guru with HS).
    I'm at a loss as to why your text transfers aren't working. If anything,
    I  would have thought the binary xfers would be giving you the trouble.
    Perhaps you could post some more info like LAT port and terminal
    characteristics, comm port settings, etc.

    Scratching my head,

    Pete

    re: .16
    
    Handshake now supports Kermit through the XPR interface I believe. I
    don't use it - VLTjr and JRComm are what I use (usually VLTjr) -
    because of the gurus it causes. just about everything I tried with
    Handshake caused one.
    
    ZModem has never given me any trouble on downloading to my Amiga. All
    files are transferred without having to set the RMS characteristics of
    the file. 
    

I use VLT with Zmodem ALL the time, and NEVER have had a problem with
file attributes, line terminators, etc. when downloading binary or
text to the amiga.

I can almost make the same claim on uploads to the VAX,
but I have found one case: When I take postscripts files generated by PPage
and uplaod them, I have to use CVTARC to convert them before they will
print and edit correctly. Very minor hassle.

    On my 500, I used Zmodem, later xprzmodem in H.S 2.2 with never a
    problem.  With the 3000, I used it from home with no problem (xprzmodem
    and H.S.), but when I moved into a motel room, it would always GURU
    until I changed the frame size to 1024, then it worked without a hitch. 
    If I selected KERMIT protocol to do text transfers (required with some
    customers' machines), it correctly talked to those machines every time.
    I did not use xprkermit.
    
    Tony