Path: news1.icaen!news.uiowa.edu!chi-news.cic.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-feed4.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!tulane.edu!not-for-mail From: "Bruce E. Fleury" Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2 Subject: Using .SHK Files on an XGS Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 00:02:57 -0500 Organization: Tulane University Lines: 63 Message-ID: <33B9E101.52BA@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu> Reply-To: bfleury@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup62.tcs.tulane.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I) Looking at all those .SHK and .BSC files on the net and wondering how to persuade them onto your XGS emulator? It can be done, with some limitations. Steve Mentzer's recent post is right on...woking with .SHK files on a PC is maddening. After many frustrating searches through deja-news and many trials, here's a mini faq that gets you at least part way there ... Start with Nathan's INDISPENSABLE apple2 faq....(www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/faq/csa2.html.. This version has clickable links..THANKS NATHAN !!). Read the section on binscii and gs shrinkit CAREFULLY. This was always a bit tricky on a real GS, more so on an emulator. You will need the MSDOS program VIEWDISK (see the asimov archive in /utility) and the Apple II 140k .dsk version of PROFILER ("Dos User's Conversion Kit") Profiler is around in many forms- see hkstar.com in /utility as a .po.gz file..it unzips [WinZip or Unix) to a .po disk image that Revival can recognize and convert to .2mg. Apple.com should also have the "Convert" program you need, it was part of the early Prodos system disk set. (Note: Save yourself some typing by keeping all these files and programs in your /xgs directory.) Get the Binscii program (ASCII text) discussed in Nathan's FAQ. Run Viewdisk ("type Viewdisk") from a "full screen" MS-DOS prompt (remember Alt-Tab toggles between MSDOS and WIN95 screens.) There are no obvious docs with Viewdisk, but type "help" or "help (command)" at the viewdisk prompt ] for a list of commands, and more detailed help with individual commands (ex.: help import). You will mainly need to use the format, insert, catalog, and import commands. FORMAT a virtual DOS 3.3 140k disk (format mydisk), which automatically "INSERTs" it, and IMPORT the binscii text file to this virtual disk. (Type: import T binscii.txt file.txt) ...The first filename is the file to import, the second is your new apple name. Viewdisk makes DOS 3.3 files, so you'll usually need a much shorter name for the new file. CATALOG the virtual floppy to see your imported file. If you try this with a file larger than 140 K the disk fills and you get an error message. A few trials may be necessary, these old MSDOS programs are user hostile for old "apple cores", but they work wonders if you keep at them. Revival (see XGS home page) will recognize this 140K DOS 3.3 .dsk image. Convert it to 140k .2mg format (be sure to select "DOS 3.3" disk as the image type). Boot your virtual hard drive in Slot 0 (see my earlier posting on creating a virtual GS hard drive) and load your new binscii disk in S6,D1. You should see the disk when you boot (if you remembered to include your DOS 3.3 FST in the /system/fst folder when you first installed GS/OS!!). You can see the files, but if you try "click and drag" copy to the desktop, it will hang. You can't drag DOS 3.3 files directly to a GS/OS desktop, virtual or otherwise. You will need to run CONVERT, on the old Apple II Prodos file utility disk (Profiler) to convert this text file from DOS 3.3 to Prodos. Now go to BASIC, and EXEC the new ProDos text file from applesoft basic, as described in Nathan's faq. Congrats! You should have a working Binscii program on your virtual hard drive, step one (the hard one) in getting .shk files into working XGS emulator programs. You can now decode the many .bsc text files on the web with the UNCONVERT option. But what you usually get are those pesky ..shk files, and you need Shrinkit to unpack those. Next I'll tell you how to get GS Shrinkit on your XGS to access some of the great GS .shk files on the net. Path: news1.icaen!news.uiowa.edu!chi-news.cic.net!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-feed4.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!tulane.edu!not-for-mail From: "Bruce E. Fleury" Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2 Subject: .SHK Files on an XGS - Part 2/2 Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 10:51:31 -0500 Organization: Tulane University Lines: 86 Message-ID: <33BBCA83.1835@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu> Reply-To: bfleury@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup30.tcs.tulane.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I) Using .SHK Files on an XGS - Part 2 Now that I can get .shk files unpacked and working on a virtual XGS hard drive, I can start to restore my old GS desktop to new virtual glory... If you tiptoed through the MS-DOS/Apple II minefield, as described in Part 1, you now have BINSCII running on your XGS emulator's 32 meg hard drive (see recent posts). How do you get SHRINKIT and use all those apple .shk files on the net? Start with Nathan's Apple 2 FAQ (www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/FAQ/csa2.html), and look at the Shrinkit section. You can't unshrink a .shk version of SHRINKIT without using SHRINKIT. Which you don't have. The trick is to get and unpack the BINSCII compressed version of Shrinkit, which is why you went through all that agony to get a crude version of binscii working in the first place... The binscii'd version of Shrinkit discussed in Nathan's FAQ (GSSHK11.bsc or similar) is too large to fit on a 140K .dsk. Wouldn't you know it...One workaround is to get Shrinkit34.bsc, a smaller ascii text "binscii'd" file. Get this file mounted on a DOS 3.3 virtual floppy using Viewdisk, as previously described. Use Revival to change your Viewdisk .dsk image to DOS 3.3 .2mg format, and run Convert to change your text file to ProDos. Run binscii on the converted Prodos text file, and you should end up with a working copy of the old P8 version of Shrinkit. Whew... Because binscii files are just ascii text files, you can also split them into smaller pieces after downloading them to your PC (using Notepad, MS-Word etc..), convert these pieces into separate ProDos text files, and "unbinscii" them, either in pieces (I clip them at the "FiLeStArT" headings) or as a single "reassembled" text file (use Teach, on the GS/OS disks if you don't have a GS word processor). You can now get GSSHK11.bsc, and easily import/revive/convert the program in two or more pieces. You should also upgrade your binscii decoder with the NDA version, Gscii+ (an .shk file mentioned in Nathan's FAQ). You can now get and unpack many binary .shk files on your XGS. But you will have to get these files via ftp through UNIX or Kermit or Winsock FTP or whatever vanilla PC terminal program you use (Hyperterminal in WIN95 works fine for this), because web browsers will corrupt binary transfers, and SHK files are binary (data) format. Nathan's FAQ discusses this problem, and even provides the essential UNIX commands you need to know for terminal mode transfers. The files must be transferred as binary files through EVERY stage of the transfer, virtual disks included. Use Viewdisk to transfer your binary .SHK files to DOS 3.3 disk images (import B oldname newname). Use Revival to convert these disks to DOS 3.3 .2mg disks, and Convert to change the binary files to ProDos binary files. When you FINALLY get the converted binary files on your hard drive, run Shrinkit to unpack them. Many of these files are first shrunk, then binscii'd before being archived on the net, so you must first run Binscii to extract the .shk files, then Shrinkit to unshrink them. Good "starter" files to try are numblox.bsq (run binscii on it first) and pyramid.shk, classic GS games at ftp.hkstar.com (and elsewhere), which will easily fit on a 140k disk image. This method work just fine on the smaller .shk files (140K or less). But larger files, other than binscii (.bsc) text files, are still just beyond my reach. There seems to be no utility out there for importing larger files into an 800K ProDos disk image. NULIB for MSDOS can unpack a useable 800K or 140k disk image, and even unpack the individual (and smaller) .shk files in the archive. But when you try to import/revive/convert these individual .shk files, they turn into garbage. I've tried NULIB both with and without uncompressing the extracted .shk files, but no luck... There should also be a way to download directly to the emulator via the virtual GS modem port and Proterm, Kermit, or similar IIGS terminal program somehow accepting input from the PC modem. I've heard rumors of this being done with other Apple II emulators. You could then pipeline ..shk files of any size directly from the net via .ftp to the XGS emulator modem port. I've tried this with Proterm, but with no success so far....Hmmmm.... Hope this helps a few of you out there like myself who KNEW it could be done, but could only find a hint here or there as to how to do it. MAJOR thanks to all involved in the creation of the tremendous XGS emulator! Makes you start wondering why you let that good old GS slip away in the first place.... Ah, well... now you can have the best of both worlds! Dr. Bruce E. Fleury bfleury@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu