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1993-07-12
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From: sourada@iastate.edu (Steven D Ourada)
Subject: Welcome to comp.sys.atari.st! (Software)
Summary: Some frequent questions and answers about Atari 16/32 bit computers.
Please read this before asking a question on comp.sys.atari.st.
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 02:28:45 GMT
Expires: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 02:28:27 GMT
Lines: 797
Archive-name: csas-faq/part2
Welcome to comp.sys.atari.st! Please read this FAQ before posting a question
to comp.sys.atari.st, since a lot of common questions are answered here.
Thanks to David Paschall-Zimbel (davidli@simvax.labmed.umn.edu) for
compiling most of this FAQ.
Entries are dated by the last change. ??.??.?? means they were last changed
before the dates were added.
The following is an index of the questions answered in this part of the FAQ.
For easy access to a particular question, search for the tag surrounded by
colons (i. e. :GNU:). Questions marked with '*' are new or changed.
*WEL Welcome to comp.sys.atari.st
*ARCS How do I deal with Archived files (.ZOO, .ARC, .LZH)?
*MSA Some info on Magic Shadow Archiver
CLI What Command Line Interpreters are available?
ERR What does TOS ERROR nn mean?
GDOS What is GDOS, and where can I get it?
*GNU What GNU software is available for the ST?
HAM Where can I find Ham Radio software for the ST?
LANG Public Domain/Shareware languages...
MINIX Is MINIX available on the Atari ST?
MINT What is MiNT?
XWIN Is there a version of XWindows for the ST?
DEMOS Why won't demo x run on my machine?
PAINT What is the format for [x] paint program data?
*PD Where can I get Public Domain/Shareware software?
MAIL E-Mail file servers
FTP Anonymous FTP servers
TEX Is TeX/LaTeX available on the Atari ST?
:WEL: 93.06.11
Welcome to comp.sys.atari.st
============================
This newsgroup is devoted to discussion about 16 and 32 bit Atari micros. At
present that includes the Atari 520ST, 1040ST, Mega ST, STe, STacy, Mega STe,
TT, and Falcon. There are also emulators for the Apple Macintosh and IBM
PC/XT/AT available.
Most of the people who read this newsgroup are technically oriented.
The newsgroup serves as a resource for Atari users ... feel free to
contribute to the discussions.
Associated newsgroups include:
comp.binaries.atari.st ! uuencoded binary programs
comp.sys.atari.st.tech ! technical programming/hardware topics
comp.sources.atari.st ! uuencoded/shar sources
:ARCS: 93.06.11
How do I deal with Archived files (.ZOO, .ARC, .LZH)?
=====================================================
Files ending with suffixes .ZOO, .ARC, .ZIP and .LZH are archive files. They
are binary files which may contain one or more other files in a compressed
format. Archive files usually take up less disk space, and for this reason have
become quite popular for transferring large files via modem.
In order to extract the files from an archive file, one must use an archive
program. Here are the correspondences:
ZIP Use UNZIP.TTP or STZIP.PRG
ARC Use ARC.TTP
LZH Use LHARC.TTP
ZOO Use ZOO.TTP
A few hints for first-time users:
* Most archivers will give a short summary of commands if invoked with no
arguments.
* If in doubt, to extract a file, copy the archiver to the directory that the
file is in, and run the archiver with the arguments 'x [filename]'.
* If you have TOS 1.4 or higher, and/or a CLI, you can avoid copying the
archiver by just changing the current directory to where the file is. See
TIPS for a tip on how to do this from the desktop on TOS 1.4 or higher.
* Read the documentation for the archivers you use, they will almost certainly
answer all your questions. Documentation is usually included in both the
source and binary distributions (such as zoo21bin.zoo).
ARCHIVERS
These programs are all available via FTP from the atari.archive server, in the
/atari/archivers directory. Recommended files are:
arc602.ttp - version 6.02 of ARC, includes features to archive
subdirectories and also include comments with files.
arc602.arc - contains documentation. UnArc using arc602.ttp.
arc521e.arc - older version of ARC. Used mostly by those who want
speed, better compression, and don't care about
archiving subdirectories. UnArc using arc602.ttp.
lharc.ttp - version 2.0 of LHARC.
lzh201i.lzh - Thomas Questors lzh utility. German documentation.
UnArc using lharc.ttp
stzip22.lzh - STZip, with GUI interface
unzip41.lzh - Old version of unzip
zoo21.ttp - version 2.1 of ZOO
zoo21bin.zoo - ZOO archive includes documentation. UnArc using
zoo21.ttp.
:MSA: 93.06.11
Some info on Magic Shadow Archiver
==================================
(This was provided by Chris Herborth)
MSA Archives
The Magic Shadow Archiver (MSA) is a disk archiving program that allows
an entire disk to be compressed into one file for transmission. The
Magic Shadow Archiver (in shadow.[arc?|lzh?|zoo?] on
atari.archive.umich.edu in ~/Archivers) creates .MSA files, which are
often compressed using a normal archiver, such as zoo or lharc.
Magic Shadow is notoriously bad when used on a 1/2 meg ST and only one
floppy drive. Its disk access and memory use are very badly thought
out, and could result in over 160 disk swaps when unpacking an 80 track,
double-sided disk.
Due to the fact that it was the _only_ disk image archiver around for
quite a long time, Magic Shadow is the de-facto standard for creating
disk images of computer demos and other pieces of software that cannot
be easily compressed as files.
Because MSA files are disk images, they can only be used to recreate a
floppy disk. There is (currently, see below) no way to extract the
files from an MSA archive without writing it to a floppy disk.
Magic Shadow works perfectly with any legal TOS floppy format, even high
density disks found in modified STs and most MegaSTes and TTs.
Chris Herborth (herborth@pinot.waterloo.ncr.com at work,
cherborth@semprini.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca at home,
C.HERBORTH on GEnie) is writing a much more efficient MSA extractor,
called UnMSA. UnMSA will minimize the number of disk swaps, and speed
decompression considerably.
Daryl Richards (no email address, yet) is working on an MSA-Mounter,
which will allow someone to unpack an MSA archive to RAM or a file on
a hard disk. This uncompressed disk image will then be added to the
system as a logical drive (much the same way a RAMdisk adds a drive to
the system). MountImage on the Mac is an example of the way MSA-Mounter
will eventually work (MountImage is so good, you can install new
versions of the Mac OS using floppy disk images stored on your hard
drive).
There is yet another MSA archiver now, called MSA II, by Phillip Lang.
:CLI: ??.??.??
What Command Line Interpreters are available?
=============================================
There are a large number of Command Line Interpreters for the Atari ST.
Some of the more popular ones include:
gulam the 'classic' cli, somewhat UNIX in flavor
BASH GNU Bourne Again Shell
ksh Korn Shell - available under MINT
gemini MUPFEL is the shell used by the gemini environment
master MS-DOS/Unix mixture, shareware.
okami a German shell with many useful utilities built in
pcommand an MS-DOS-like shell
csh C-shell, standard on Unix
tcsh Enchanced C-shell - available under MiNT
Check atari.archive under /atari/cli or /atari/mint, or check one of the
other FTP sites for files.
:ERR: ??.??.??
What does TOS ERROR nn mean?
What do the bombs on my screen mean?
====================================
The information below was written, in part, by Darryl May, and posted on
GEnie in January (of ????) by John Townsend. The original also appeared in
the June 1988 issue of _Current Notes_ (122 N. Johnson Rd., Sterling, VA
22170). It has since found its way to me, and is being posted to
comp.sys.atari.st as a service to readers.
Alan Pratt wrote to tell me that the basic information may be correct, but
that it cannot be dubbed "official" unless it originates, on paper, from
Atari. This makes sen