Against the ZIP format's origins - Zip history 101
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.ZIP Standard to Fragment?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
*sigh* computer people don't know history.
Back in the DOS days (1986?) there was a format called ARC used by the program arc. Everyone used it on the BBSes. Phil Katz came up with his own programs, pkarc and pkxarc. One created, one extracted. He added a new compression scheme and his apps were *much* faster.
BBSes converted. When everyone is on 8088s and 2400 baud, every bit and cpu cycle counts.
arc sued PK and won. PK had some arc code in pkarc/pkxarc or something. PK vowed neither he nor anyone else would be in that position and released the zip format.
At the time, there was zoo, lha also competing. zoo was cross platform (DOS, Unix, VMS). lha was small and fast, producing small archives. zip aimed to be both.
BBSes converted overnight. The arc format disappeared. Other formats persisted for awhile, but zip stayed mainstream.
It's sad that PKware is on the other side of this...
I went to Clarkson '88. We were the 2nd class required to have a computer. Supplied w/ your dorm key & part of your tuition. Clarkson was the 1st college to have computers for every student in '83.
Anyways, notes on paper are best for classroom. You can get all the words, diagrams, charts, and formulas on them. I assume most profs still use the chalkboard. We had projection screens, but they really didn't offer more then chalkboard or overheads. Maybe times have changed.
Everyone had a computer & used the college supplied software. If the college has a standard, use it. If everyone else uses it it's easier to collaborate. Plus the school has discounts.
I vote for a laptop with a good lock, a backpack to put it in that doesn't look like it has a backpack, and an extra power cord to keep in the bag. Get a backpack that's good for other things.
I prefer a laptop to a desktop. You're going to want to go to the library to study. Or someone else's room. Or in your bed. Or while on a trip home. Or someplace away from your loud dormmates having a party the night before an exam;-) It costs a bit more, but for school, it's worth it!
"... a buyout would be chump change to most SV players. Sun probably would gain the most,.... They'd also save a little cash on thier license for UNIX(TM)."
If Sun was paying for a license. They bought permenent rights to System V.4 a few years ago. Sun owns its unix completely. Everyone else doing V.x pays for the license.
One company I worked at did thier user manual in LaTeX. It was CFD software. Lots of fluid dynamics equations. Graphs, etc.
Someone wrote a dynamic viewer on unix (SunOS/Irix/AIX/HP-UX) pretty quickly. This was '93.
Anyways, they decided to change to a new help file format (Windows Help?). This required a translation to word. We had macs and used Word 4 on them. The PowerPC was just coming out.
This LaTeX document which could be produced on a low end sun. We could probably run it through OzTeX on a Mac SE.
The word version grew and grew. It consumed the SE. It consumed a Quadra 800. Adding sections/references (lots of them!) was very painful. The file size grew from 1MB to many many megabytes.
If you want to do scientific docs or have lots of references, etc, LaTeX is very cool. Word sucks.
The GPL states they have to provide the source code *at a reasonable cost* to anyone they provided the binary to. They cannot prevent some that has obtained the source from redistributing it.
ex: NeXT used GNU C as the basis of its Objective C compiler. If you wanted the source code, you had to buy it ($500?). Once that person had it, they could post it for free, sell it for $$$, etc. But NeXT couldn't prevent that person from distributing the code.
There was no requirement that *NeXT* provide the source for free.
My degree is a BS Mechanincal Engineering. I passed the EIT in NY. I've never worked as an Engineer. I work as a Unix System Administrator.
My studies were not limited to physics, math and analysis. There was a factor of safety, failure modes, economic analysis and end of life.
Most programming I've looked at is more like some guy racing a car at a local track then formula one racing.
Formula 1 involves aerodynamic, safety, thermodynamic and structural design. There's lots of real heavy duty anylysis and modeling done. Usually before it's built, but also during the season. Things are measured and incorporated during the season too. From the design, they know how a crash will affect the driver, how the car will collapse and break.
The guy racing the local track modifies an existing car & tries things to see what works. Safety devices are dictated by common sense. What feels right dictates much of the design. Feedback comes from the driver. There are no sensors in the car to measure things.
The F1 cars are engineered. I don't think software has things like factor of safety, fracture points, end of life yet. I'd love to see it happen, but I think most of it is seat of the pants kind of design.
I got my degree as a Mechanical Engineer from Clarkson University in NY. I took (and passed) the EIT exam in NY. Steps 1-3 are the same. For step 2, you need to keep a journal recording the hours, etc.
I believe the PE license is the same throughout the US.
The YZ-450F and YZ-250F that revolutionized the off road motocross world. The WR enduro models are cool too. If only they'd put decent silencers on them and made 'em easy to start. Wait, the WRs have electric start
In the 80s, individuals could get on fidonet. It was mostly like News. You could request file transfers. And you could do email. It was similar to internet of the time: no web existed.
It was done with phone lines and store and forward hubs. If you ran a node, you naturally wanted to connect to someone with a local phone.
I've been a Sun user since SunOS 4.1.2 on a sparcstation 1+. I also started running Linux SLS (kernel 0.98pl5) on a 486. This is around '93.
Then, the PC wasn't too bad as an xterminal. Fire up a compile in the background & the sparc was better hands down.
Skip ahead to the Ultra10 vs a PIII 700MHz. Probably pretty close.
However, using linux/*BSD on the PC I can get many more apps. Lots of precompiled binaries are there for the lazy. up2date/MandrakeUpdate/aptget/ximian make keeping up with patches easier on Linux. I don't remember ximian offering OS patches for Solaris 7...
I'm trying to think of a reason I'd rather have a sun on my desktop instead of a PC. Ok, graphics intensive apps that only run on Solaris such as CAD. Most other stuff can be run off a server that I ssh/xterm to.
Plus I get more choices in keyboards, mice, USB stuff, cameras, etc.
btw - I do have several suns at home. My firewall is an LX running OpenBSD, my fileserver is an Ultra1 and I have a sparc20. My main machine? A PC laptop......
It's clear that Linux users need a MUCH better windowing environment, but we've been geared to X for so long that another windowing environment is unimaginable... okay maybe not unimaginable, but so far, not projected to be in wide acceptance.
There was a stab at it with the SVGA stuff. I remember hearing some people arguing the merits of NeWS vs X. I think Display Postscript is similar to NeWS in some ways.
As a desktop user, on one machine, the "windows" model works pretty well. I'm usually sitting in front of one machine. I only need to go to another machine for file and web serving.
As a user at a site with lots of machines, the "windows" model fails. I run programs on various machines (various compute servers, the time card application server, the database client server, etc) and I have an xterminal at my desk. When I need more compute power IT adds another compute server or upgrades one of the existing ones.
Windows Terminal Server and Citrix Metaframe are an interesting extension to the "windows" model. It works pretty well if you have an IT dept to support it. It's overkill for a less then (N) users for some value of N. Some applications won't run well in this environment. Some due to the terminal server itself, some to latency over a network (graphical apps like visio and where precision mouse work is needed).
The nice thing about X is that it works pretty well as a single user "windows" type system w/o having to do anything special to extend across the network.
> If you have a better solution to high > unemployment in small towns that doesn't > inconvenience you, please speak up.
I read a comic (Hellblazer, don't remember the issue #) that had a plot about this. The solution was a bit sick.
Basically, the town created a subscription porn site on the web. Everyone in town would take turns of a week being the "victim" of various sexual abuse while chained up, etc.
From one single resource to another....
There are other ways to make a living and the web makes it easier to find an audience.
I know some people selling things on eBay. Or making & selling crafts.
I have a cable modem. My wife & I both have wifi in our laptops and typically have themin our laps while we watch TV and read our websites, chat to others, etc.
On vacation, we use a dialup. So we can look for information on where we are as well as keep in email touch.
Popup ads and superflous graphics don't bug me too much on the cable modem but they drive me nuts when I'm trying to get info on the dialup! Each one of them is costing me time!
I remember getting my 1st DOS system: a Zenith Z100 with Zdos 1.12. No subdirectories:-) Not PC compatible, but it ran MS-Fortran, Multiplan, MS-Pascal, TurboPascal, Lotus 123 (Z100 version). And even MS-Windows 1.0.
I later got a Z-248 80286 machine. I learned batch programming, 4dos, lots of shareware, aseasyas, PC-Write, vi (elvis, stevie), emacs (freemacs, microemacs), awk, lex, C (turbo C), LaTeX, gnuplot.
I used gnuplot, awk, batch, and C to help lab users graph biotech data on an AT system. It was very useful.
Oh, I also got minix running but the awk, vi, emacs, lex, were not enough to deter me from DOS.
Later, I got a 486 and OS/2. Most of the GNU tools were ported. I finally realized I was trying to run unix, why not get unix?
386BSD didn't boot, but linux.93 did. I still have DOSemu if I feel I want to go back. I prefer unix:-)
I have a Pilot 1000 with the PalmPro 1MB upgrade and a cracked screen. I got my wife a PalmPilot Professional. I got a Palm IIIxe to replace my cracked 1000. I cracked that too:-( and now2 I have a Handspring Visor.
I live & breath with it. I mostly use the calendar, address book, strip (to store passwords), and freecell. I sync to evolution. I also have the POSE emulator so I can have readonly access to my strip passwords.
I don't have to worry about losing an appointment card, etc.
I've also read books at various times. And taken notes at usenix and such. I'll tend to use the laptop in that case.
My wife, she uses her Franklin planner. She takes lots of notes and needs to refer to them for CYA stuff at work:-( A PDA just won't do it for her.
Everytime I get asked an address/zip code, I think of the Blues Brothers movie when the cops look for Elwood based on his address. When they got there, they were at Wriggly Field baseball stadium.
I usually give a fake zip code or maybe my work address. I need to memorize a complete fake address, maybe Fenway Park in Boston.
In my 1st class at college, I had my watch beep on the hour. So did 25% of the class (it was an engineering school/class). The next lecture, noone had them beep because it was embarassing.
I'd hope the teacher would make it know that ringing cell phones are not allowed in his lectures after the 1st ring. After the 2nd, summon the student to the front of the class and answer the phone for him.
After that, kick them out. They're wasting thier time, the teacher's time, and the time of every other student in the class.
Here in Massachusetts, many towns have anti-tower laws and regulations. In one town, when townspeople found out a cell tower had been put in near a school, they tried to get it taken down.
I love the idea of church steeple towers. I'd also love it if my condo association could rent/sell a plot of land to a provider on a remote corner of our land, next to the river & away from all the condos. I think the town has a rule against it. *sigh*
One upon a time (1995ish), when I looked up my name, Tom Buskey, I was the 1st thing on google and altavista. Now, the baseball player for the Indians, Tom Buskey shows up as basball data starts getting to the web.
I hope he doesn't start using the web himself. I like being able to use buskey everywhere I want. I feel sorry for people with more common last names.
Good points, but you forget one point: there is a danger in trapping sediment and filling up the dammed area. The ecology of the tidal area depends on having large volumes of water sweeping in and out.
The area around Cape Kennedy was diked to contol flooding which hurt some species and helped others. They've come up with some ways to help. See the Merrit Island park for more info.
I've also seen an actual tidal generation facility in Nova Scotia. Right near the highest tides in the world. I forgot the name of the site. They had some success using already dammed areas. They also mention the problem above.
Slashdot Mirror
Like with fink:
apt-get install mozilla-browser?
*sigh* computer people don't know history.
Back in the DOS days (1986?) there was a format called ARC used by the program arc. Everyone used it on the BBSes. Phil Katz came up with his own programs, pkarc and pkxarc. One created, one extracted. He added a new compression scheme and his apps were *much* faster.
BBSes converted. When everyone is on 8088s and 2400 baud, every bit and cpu cycle counts.
arc sued PK and won. PK had some arc code in pkarc/pkxarc or something. PK vowed neither he nor anyone else would be in that position and released the zip format.
At the time, there was zoo, lha also competing. zoo was cross platform (DOS, Unix, VMS). lha was small and fast, producing small archives. zip aimed to be both.
BBSes converted overnight. The arc format disappeared. Other formats persisted for awhile, but zip stayed mainstream.
It's sad that PKware is on the other side of this...
I went to Clarkson '88. We were the 2nd class required to have a computer. Supplied w/ your dorm key & part of your tuition. Clarkson was the 1st college to have computers for every student in '83.
;-) It costs a bit more, but for school, it's worth it!
Anyways, notes on paper are best for classroom. You can get all the words, diagrams, charts, and formulas on them. I assume most profs still use the chalkboard. We had projection screens, but they really didn't offer more then chalkboard or overheads. Maybe times have changed.
Everyone had a computer & used the college supplied software. If the college has a standard, use it. If everyone else uses it it's easier to collaborate. Plus the school has discounts.
I vote for a laptop with a good lock, a backpack to put it in that doesn't look like it has a backpack, and an extra power cord to keep in the bag. Get a backpack that's good for other things.
I prefer a laptop to a desktop. You're going to want to go to the library to study. Or someone else's room. Or in your bed. Or while on a trip home. Or someplace away from your loud dormmates having a party the night before an exam
"... a buyout would be chump change to most SV players. Sun probably would gain the most, .... They'd also save a little cash on thier license for UNIX(TM)."
If Sun was paying for a license. They bought permenent rights to System V.4 a few years ago. Sun owns its unix completely. Everyone else doing V.x pays for the license.
One company I worked at did thier user manual in LaTeX. It was CFD software. Lots of fluid dynamics equations. Graphs, etc.
Someone wrote a dynamic viewer on unix (SunOS/Irix/AIX/HP-UX) pretty quickly. This was '93.
Anyways, they decided to change to a new help file format (Windows Help?). This required a translation to word. We had macs and used Word 4 on them. The PowerPC was just coming out.
This LaTeX document which could be produced on a low end sun. We could probably run it through OzTeX on a Mac SE.
The word version grew and grew. It consumed the SE. It consumed a Quadra 800. Adding sections/references (lots of them!) was very painful. The file size grew from 1MB to many many megabytes.
If you want to do scientific docs or have lots of references, etc, LaTeX is very cool. Word sucks.
The GPL states they have to provide the source code *at a reasonable cost* to anyone they provided the binary to. They cannot prevent some that has obtained the source from redistributing it.
ex: NeXT used GNU C as the basis of its Objective C compiler. If you wanted the source code, you had to buy it ($500?). Once that person had it, they could post it for free, sell it for $$$, etc. But NeXT couldn't prevent that person from distributing the code.
There was no requirement that *NeXT* provide the source for free.
My degree is a BS Mechanincal Engineering. I passed the EIT in NY. I've never worked as an Engineer. I work as a Unix System Administrator.
My studies were not limited to physics, math and analysis. There was a factor of safety, failure modes, economic analysis and end of life.
Most programming I've looked at is more like some guy racing a car at a local track then formula one racing.
Formula 1 involves aerodynamic, safety, thermodynamic and structural design. There's lots of real heavy duty anylysis and modeling done. Usually before it's built, but also during the season. Things are measured and incorporated during the season too. From the design, they know how a crash will affect the driver, how the car will collapse and break.
The guy racing the local track modifies an existing car & tries things to see what works. Safety devices are dictated by common sense. What feels right dictates much of the design. Feedback comes from the driver. There are no sensors in the car to measure things.
The F1 cars are engineered. I don't think software has things like factor of safety, fracture points, end of life yet. I'd love to see it happen, but I think most of it is seat of the pants kind of design.
I got my degree as a Mechanical Engineer from Clarkson University in NY. I took (and passed) the EIT exam in NY. Steps 1-3 are the same. For step 2, you need to keep a journal recording the hours, etc.
I believe the PE license is the same throughout the US.
Cisco aquires companies all the time. They're very good at integrating them.
The YZ-450F and YZ-250F that revolutionized the off road motocross world. The WR enduro models are cool too. If only they'd put decent silencers on them and made 'em easy to start. Wait, the WRs have electric start
Fidonet.
In the 80s, individuals could get on fidonet. It was mostly like News. You could request file transfers. And you could do email. It was similar to internet of the time: no web existed.
It was done with phone lines and store and forward hubs. If you ran a node, you naturally wanted to connect to someone with a local phone.
I wonder how it would've gone with WiFi then?
I've been a Sun user since SunOS 4.1.2 on a sparcstation 1+. I also started running Linux SLS (kernel 0.98pl5) on a 486. This is around '93.
Then, the PC wasn't too bad as an xterminal. Fire up a compile in the background & the sparc was better hands down.
Skip ahead to the Ultra10 vs a PIII 700MHz. Probably pretty close.
However, using linux/*BSD on the PC I can get many more apps. Lots of precompiled binaries are there for the lazy. up2date/MandrakeUpdate/aptget/ximian make keeping up with patches easier on Linux. I don't remember ximian offering OS patches for Solaris 7...
I'm trying to think of a reason I'd rather have a sun on my desktop instead of a PC. Ok, graphics intensive apps that only run on Solaris such as CAD. Most other stuff can be run off a server that I ssh/xterm to.
Plus I get more choices in keyboards, mice, USB stuff, cameras, etc.
btw - I do have several suns at home. My firewall is an LX running OpenBSD, my fileserver is an Ultra1 and I have a sparc20. My main machine? A PC laptop......
Killington VT was going to do this....
It's clear that Linux users need a MUCH better windowing environment, but we've been geared to X for so long that another windowing environment is unimaginable... okay maybe not unimaginable, but so far, not projected to be in wide acceptance.
There was a stab at it with the SVGA stuff. I remember hearing some people arguing the merits of NeWS vs X. I think Display Postscript is similar to NeWS in some ways.
As a desktop user, on one machine, the "windows" model works pretty well. I'm usually sitting in front of one machine. I only need to go to another machine for file and web serving.
As a user at a site with lots of machines, the "windows" model fails. I run programs on various machines (various compute servers, the time card application server, the database client server, etc) and I have an xterminal at my desk. When I need more compute power IT adds another compute server or upgrades one of the existing ones.
Windows Terminal Server and Citrix Metaframe are an interesting extension to the "windows" model. It works pretty well if you have an IT dept to support it. It's overkill for a less then (N) users for some value of N. Some applications won't run well in this environment. Some due to the terminal server itself, some to latency over a network (graphical apps like visio and where precision mouse work is needed).
The nice thing about X is that it works pretty well as a single user "windows" type system w/o having to do anything special to extend across the network.
> If you have a better solution to high
> unemployment in small towns that doesn't
> inconvenience you, please speak up.
I read a comic (Hellblazer, don't remember the issue #) that had a plot about this. The solution was a bit sick.
Basically, the town created a subscription porn site on the web. Everyone in town would take turns of a week being the "victim" of various sexual abuse while chained up, etc.
From one single resource to another....
There are other ways to make a living and the web makes it easier to find an audience.
I know some people selling things on eBay. Or making & selling crafts.
I have a cable modem. My wife & I both have wifi in our laptops and typically have themin our laps while we watch TV and read our websites, chat to others, etc.
On vacation, we use a dialup. So we can look for information on where we are as well as keep in email touch.
Popup ads and superflous graphics don't bug me too much on the cable modem but they drive me nuts when I'm trying to get info on the dialup! Each one of them is costing me time!
I remember getting my 1st DOS system: a Zenith Z100 with Zdos 1.12. No subdirectories :-) Not PC compatible, but it ran MS-Fortran, Multiplan, MS-Pascal, TurboPascal, Lotus 123 (Z100 version). And even MS-Windows 1.0.
.93 did. I still have DOSemu if I feel I want to go back. I prefer unix :-)
I later got a Z-248 80286 machine. I learned batch programming, 4dos, lots of shareware, aseasyas, PC-Write, vi (elvis, stevie), emacs (freemacs, microemacs), awk, lex, C (turbo C), LaTeX, gnuplot.
I used gnuplot, awk, batch, and C to help lab users graph biotech data on an AT system. It was very useful.
Oh, I also got minix running but the awk, vi, emacs, lex, were not enough to deter me from DOS.
Later, I got a 486 and OS/2. Most of the GNU tools were ported. I finally realized I was trying to run unix, why not get unix?
386BSD didn't boot, but linux
I have a Pilot 1000 with the PalmPro 1MB upgrade and a cracked screen. I got my wife a PalmPilot Professional. I got a Palm IIIxe to replace my cracked 1000. I cracked that too :-( and now2 I have a Handspring Visor.
:-( A PDA just won't do it for her.
I live & breath with it. I mostly use the calendar, address book, strip (to store passwords), and freecell. I sync to evolution. I also have the POSE emulator so I can have readonly access to my strip passwords.
I don't have to worry about losing an appointment card, etc.
I've also read books at various times. And taken notes at usenix and such. I'll tend to use the laptop in that case.
My wife, she uses her Franklin planner. She takes lots of notes and needs to refer to them for CYA stuff at work
Everytime I get asked an address/zip code, I think of the Blues Brothers movie when the cops look for Elwood based on his address. When they got there, they were at Wriggly Field baseball stadium.
I usually give a fake zip code or maybe my work address. I need to memorize a complete fake address, maybe Fenway Park in Boston.
In my 1st class at college, I had my watch beep on the hour. So did 25% of the class (it was an engineering school/class). The next lecture, noone had them beep because it was embarassing.
I'd hope the teacher would make it know that ringing cell phones are not allowed in his lectures after the 1st ring. After the 2nd, summon the student to the front of the class and answer the phone for him.
After that, kick them out. They're wasting thier time, the teacher's time, and the time of every other student in the class.
Here in Massachusetts, many towns have anti-tower laws and regulations. In one town, when townspeople found out a cell tower had been put in near a school, they tried to get it taken down.
I love the idea of church steeple towers. I'd also love it if my condo association could rent/sell a plot of land to a provider on a remote corner of our land, next to the river & away from all the condos. I think the town has a rule against it. *sigh*
I've been lucky enough not to get those. He wasn't famous enough or was long enough back in the 70s.
One upon a time (1995ish), when I looked up my name, Tom Buskey, I was the 1st thing on google and altavista. Now, the baseball player for the Indians, Tom Buskey shows up as basball data starts getting to the web.
:-)
I hope he doesn't start using the web himself. I like being able to use buskey everywhere I want. I feel sorry for people with more common last names.
I wonder if I should start registering domains
Good points, but you forget one point: there is a danger in trapping sediment and filling up the dammed area. The ecology of the tidal area depends on having large volumes of water sweeping in and out.
The area around Cape Kennedy was diked to contol flooding which hurt some species and helped others. They've come up with some ways to help. See the Merrit Island park for more info.
I've also seen an actual tidal generation facility in Nova Scotia. Right near the highest tides in the world. I forgot the name of the site. They had some success using already dammed areas. They also mention the problem above.
The default install isn't easy????
It's not graphical, but it is easy.
Anyways, I run OBSD headless on my sparc LX. No graphics installed. I install via serial port.
It sounds like you haven't tried an install.