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Dosoo
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 32 |
gentlemen prefer zips
I'm just thinking that why so much of todays 64 software is in zipped form. As we all know, the size of an unzipped d64 file is 170 kb. Whats the purpose of zipping that? And of course the actual program file on the disk image is crunched.
Ten years ago all this made sense. Now we're living internet time and the byte transfer speed is much faster than ancient times.
I don't like unzipping |
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Pixman
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 42 |
Well, do you prefer downloading four disk sides or one zip file...?
I prefer the zip file.
And btw, C64 users are still like in the 80s, you know ;-)
Greets,
Pixman |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Well, for me it's mostly about saving webspace. You can imagine that 31 MB of zipped d64s take up well over 60 MB uncompressed.
Considered that I only have 75 MB I would have nearly no space left for all those neat screenshots. ;-)
And have you ever thought about the fact that the majority of people is still surfing with ISDN or 56k modem, some even use their C64 with a 14.4k modem?
I could deliver much more arguments in favour of zips, but I better stop here.
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Warbaby
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 60 |
I can't even remember the days I didn't use ZIP. I love it. |
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
Quote: Well, do you prefer downloading four disk sides or one zip file...?
I prefer the zip file.
And btw, C64 users are still like in the 80s, you know ;-)
Greets,
Pixman
"C64 users are still like in the 80s"
Haha, that's the best sentence I have heard for while on a C64 forum. Really. |
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White Flame
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 136 |
There's also the benefit of including readme files for extra info, or source code, etc. |
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Cupid
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 83 |
And only FULL d64s are 170kb, most of the time a zip is a lot smaller. And there is also the bit about linking to it on a website. Linking to a d64 directly causes trouble on normal PCs, as the machine does not know what to do with the file (no mime type, no program connection). Zip is the standard for downloadables on the web. Use a nice file commander and you can use them like folders (wincommander) or use unzip even in dos mode. I _hate_ people putting d64s on the web, they did not really grasp the idea of web publishing. It's as evil as linking to ppt,bmp,xls, or any other document that requires a special tool to be opened.
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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 621 |
I hate those !1,!2,!3,!4 files (ZipCode), I have to use the Zip-Collection V2 to unzip all those zip-coded files on to a destination disk. ...and the worse thing? Well, it takes a lot longer to unzip a zip code packed file, rather than use .D64. |
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Cupid
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 83 |
You use starzip for unpacking that, shipped with Starcommander :-)
This is actually the old practice that you HAD to use on BBS, more or less tradition now.
Agreed, this is rather annoying than making sense these days.
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
1! mainly comes up with old files (nineties), e.g. many on Digital Dungeon
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S¥T
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 14 |
i agree with Pixman! don't forget the people still use their 64 and I also prefer zip or other packed stuff coz I often experience some files are broken when they where not zipped and when mostly everything is alright! so why not unzipping??? gimme a reason why thing should not be zipped! smaller file sizes means more disk space on the severs!!! that's cool no? |
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Dosoo
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 32 |
example.
I have just coded a little game, which takes 70 blocks, when saved with all the data with Action Replay.
I crunch it. The crucher uses half an hour to really squeeze all the extra bytes. The file is now 20 blocks on Commodore disk
Then I make a disk image out of it. By accustomed fingers I type "sc" in my DOS command prompt. With X1541 I make an image in no time.
I don't like, that people who will use it gets it easy, so I make it a zip file. A 170 KB file in a 8 GB harddrive dehydrates to 40 KB. Wow! 130 KB for Windows to use as virtual memory!!!. I only forget, that the original d64 is still there taking the valuable mass storage space.
Now I'm ready to put it in the Gangsta's paradise. I didn't wait and put the other piece of code I released last week in the same package, as I want to be cool and productive and produce several applications constantly.
Then comes the downloader and hoovers my code to his/her disk.
As a modern user he goes home and puts his disk to A: and types "DIR". Ok, a zipfile. First he of course copies the file to harddrive and then unzips it with the easy, "pkunzip c:\commodore\newcode\misc\code.zip" -statement.
Finally he has a d64 ready to be transferred to disk.
He copies it to his RAMLINK and watches as the bytes loads faster than light to his CBM memory. After RUN he can watch funny little colours appearing to screen as the decrucher starts to work.
I say things doesn't always have to go this way! |
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Zorro
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 7 |
On zipcoded and LNX files if, like me, all you want is a way to double-click them and have the converted file spat out into the same directory, try these methods:
LNX
http://kunda.no-ip.org/c64/LNXtoPRG.txt - File extension association commandline instructions for converting to PRG
http://kunda.no-ip.org/c64/Utilities/CBMCNVRT.EXE - Conversion app
Z64 (or zipcoded - 4 files with 1! 2! 3! and 4! prefixes)
http://kunda.no-ip.org/c64/z64tod64.txt - File extension association commandline instructions for converting to D64
http://kunda.no-ip.org/qbasic/zip2d64.exe - Conversion app
http://kunda.no-ip.org/qbasic/z64tod64.bat - Batch file used in commandline
http://kunda.no-ip.org/apps/QBasic%207_1.zip - Q Basic
- remember to save/extract the above 3 files to the same folder with no spaces in pathname, preferrably WINDOWS folder. |
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Zorro
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 7 |
Sorry, zipcode conversion didn't post
Z64 (or zipcoded - 4 files with 1! 2! 3! and 4! prefixes)
http://kunda.no-ip.org/c64/z64tod64.txt - File extension association commandline instructions for converting to D64
http://kunda.no-ip.org/qbasic/zip2d64.exe - Conversion app
http://kunda.no-ip.org/qbasic/z64tod64.bat - Batch file used in commandline
http://kunda.no-ip.org/apps/QBasic%207_1.zip - Q Basic
- remember to save/extract the above 3 files to the same folder with no spaces in pathname, preferrably WINDOWS folder. |
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Zorro
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 7 |
Hmm.. it didn't like the space in the qbasic url.
Well just go to http://kunda.no-ip.org/apps/ and download the qbasic zipfile.
There used to be a way to manipulate strings in ms-dos batchfiles without needing to create a qbasic file on the fly and run it, by exploiting a quirk that was "fixed" after v6.22 |
