KEN ABOUT .......... LYNX, LINKS AND OFF TOPIC
by Ken Ross: petlibrary@bigfoot.com

Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/~petlibrary

LYNX8017B.GT

Regular readers will have come across mentions of "project upload" which involves making the contents of the CBM/PET library available for download. To get files up onto the web site I've got to shift them through my A500+ via messyDOS and then shove the resulting PC720K disk into my Mac. Programs used a lot on the C64 side of things were LYNX17 by Will Corley for creation/ dissolving along with ARKIVE2 for dissolving . A comment on the CBM Hackers mailing list made me have a look at how LNX archives were created. After creating a test data LNX archive on the C64 it was shifted over to the Mac, where it was examined. The following points were noted.

1. parts of it could be identified.
2. the header had data to reconstruct the original files, name, size, type, padding size.
3. LYNX17 on the C64 works by filling incomplete sectors at the end of files with random data and also by modifying the end sector pointer to the next file .

On the Mac I worked out a simple Chipmunk Basic de-LNX'er and extracted the original files. Using this framework the process was repeated on the 8096. In the header the file information was stored as:

filename ( with chr$(160 padding)
how many sectors used
file type
actual number of bytes used in the final sector

Opting for a read and write process, rather than modifying the original disk, meant I could cut out a stage of using another program for copying from device8 to device9.

The means of creating varying filetypes ( PRG , SEQ, etc ) is just a modification of the SEQ file handling routine.

1060 FW$=CRLEY$(I)+","+TYPNUM$(I)+",W"
filename ,file type (p/ s/ r/ u) , write command
The write command is essential, otherwise it defaults to read. The file type letter defines which sort of file to write. This can be used to list PRG files to disk as SEQ files.

1070 DOPEN#4,(FW$) ,D(TR) ON U(TD)
open file FW$ on drive 0 or 1 on device 8 or 9.

For menu selection of files to be archived there was a very nice selection in COPY/ALL by Joe Griffin so I just lifted out the section needed and used it with a few tweaks.

The reverse process to create LNX archives was next and it had a name at last, "LYNX8017". Rather than use random data padding I chose to fill with "#", which when zipped makes the end result a bit smaller.

The penultimate step was to run PETSPEED over it to get the '.gt' version.

After final compatibility tests it was posted up into the download folder/directory. So far the feedback has been good with Tom Ramm using it in his 8032 in Michigan and Michael R. Cook running it under VICE 1.2 on a Windoze 98 machine.

There also exist a program by the name of 'MacLynx' that is a form of text only browser. I presume a PC version must exist. Neither are anything to do with the items mentioned in the article above.

THIS MONTH'S "PLACES OF INTEREST"

Always a good place to start!
http://www.hut.fi/Misc/cbm/netresources.html
CBM: Commodore-related Net Resources

Jag's famous site for 68k Macs has moved to
http://www.jagshouse.com /
Time to edit those bookmark files!

For further info about MacLynx browser
http://www.lirmm.fr/~gutkneco/maclynx/download.html
Downloading MacLynx - Charger MacLynx

Getting stuff from your Commodore and vice versa, but as they're for PC I'm not in a position to judge them .
http://www.hut.fi/Misc/cbm/xfer/prlink.html
CBM: Introduction to prlink
http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/transfer/CBM-to-PC/index.html
ftp.funet.fi:/pub/cbm/crossplatform/transfer/CBM-to-PC/

Chipmunk BASIC is freeware so why not have it handy in the latest version ?
http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/
Chipmunk Basic Home Page

This is only one of many 'virtual museum' sites and has lots of interesting links.
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/icom/vlmp/computing.html
The Virtual Museum of Computing

Still going strong ! (it seems ?)
http://www.icomm.ca/tpug/
TPUG

JUST GIVE ME THE FAX

The fax gateway provider I've been using has been pulled for the foreseeable future so I'm now using one provided by www.yac.com. This'll forward faxes to my email box as a TIFF image bundle, ( if >1 page ), - hurrah for graphic converter! It will also forward voicemail as an AIFF file. I've also got a USA equivalent which enables me to have an 'American office' presence ;->
( Brian Grainger will no doubt make some comment here about fake offices! Ed: No I wont!)
Yac.com will send you 50 cards with your name and gateway number on it for free after you've got your number from them.

SUBJECT: QUICKIE HTML / TEXT CONVERSIONS from PDF. (From: Gavin Haines)

A very handy way to convert big all text stuff over to HTML is to go to the site Adobe set up for visually impaired people.
http://access.adobe.com/access_email.html
It will translate a PDF to text or to HTML for you and email it back. You can send either the PDF or the URL in the email. It's going to ruin the column/frame layout but it gets it started pretty quick for tweaking later. It won't deal with graphics, (completely ignores yer jpgs and gifs), but since the page is all text...

WILD BLUE YONDER ENDING?

This opinion is most probably against all common sense.

While I was doing a bit of historical research on the subject of roads & transport a while back I noticed a trend so I applied it to the petrol driven motor car.

At some point in the future they will be able to look back and point to a period of a few years and say that's when the motor car started to be replaced by ( whatever ). The curve I mapped out seems to be showing that the decline will occur in about 10-12 years time. What will be coming next I've no idea - I'll admit that freely - but on past transport trends I'd venture a guess that minor roads will only need to be lightly constructed.

Yes, I know this sounds silly but as a pointer to future needs it may counter the conventional road building wisdom of paying out for a heavily designed roadway that will last 20 years(?), when in 15 perhaps a cycle path standard is all that is needed?

For a quick railway comparison consider the Great Central line out of Marylebone. It was designed to handle full sized express steam locos and all the necessary support systems, etc. Now what's left of it is only used by light weight 'turbo' Diesel Multiple Units - not quite the future that anyone envisaged for it!

Various people have predicted rosy futures for the transport systems of their age and all have been proved to be wrong in the history books!