Disk Disintegrators and utilities

15 posts / 0 new
Last post
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 1 month ago
Joined: May 27 2009 - 01:37
Posts: 1002
Disk Disintegrators and utilities

No, this isn't about destroying floppies. It's about packing full disk games or many files into 1 single file for easy upload to ancient BBS'es. There were a number of programs that did this, the most widely used one was Dalton's Disk Disintegrator.

I currently have in my stash:
DDD 1.0
DDD 1.1
DDD 2.0
DDD 2.1E
DDD 2.1F
Fireworx 1.0
Disk Rigger 3.0
Disk Rigger 3.01
Disk Rigger 3.2
Disk Splitter 2.0
Disk Splitter 2.5
Disk Cruncher 1.0
Disk Cruncher 1.0+
Disk Disintegrator Deluxe 4.2
Disk Disintegrator Deluxe 5.0

I'm looking to get any versions of DDD and other packers you may have that I don't, such as:
DDD 2.1
DDD 2.5
Disk Rigger
Disk Slicer
Disk Divider
Disk Cruncher 1.1
Autograph
ProPacker 5.3c (and earlier)
PBH Pack 2.0e (and earlier)

And probably more! If anyone can contribute any I'll certainly post them all in a nice package on Asimov for all to enjoy. For all you newbies that are wondering what the fuck I'm rambling on about, this is the old pre-historic, pre-PC, way of zipping and un-zipping disks.

For all you newbies that are wondering what the hell I'm rambling on about, this is the old pre-historic, pre-PC, way of zipping and un-zipping disks.

speedyG's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 10 months ago
Joined: Nov 16 2011 - 07:45
Posts: 2493
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Hello Keatah,

most of that programs may be found at the former User Group disks ( IAC etc. )
some of them have been only published as sourcecode at very old DDJ-issues....
(resulting from discussion about packing algorythms )
please also reming that some packing utilities have been published by Nibbles....

sincerely
speedyG

gsmcten's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 8 months ago
Joined: Oct 4 2005 - 18:52
Posts: 2629
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Keatah,

This is the first I've heard of any of these programs. lol

I for one would like the chance to use/study them.

Steven Smile

speedyG's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 10 months ago
Joined: Nov 16 2011 - 07:45
Posts: 2493
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities


I for one would like the chance to use/study them.
Steven :)

Well Steven,

if you enter in a library of a University with well sorted ancient paper archives
you´ll get that chance....

in the specified years there was among the specialized programmers a lively
discussion about packing and compression algorithmes... at the beginning related
to file compression and later with growing sizes of picture data also with the
compression of picture standards.....

and among the programmers performing their job with Fortran, Pascal or C - Dr.Dobbs Journal
was something like the monthly reference of the "state of the art" in programming.....

It's today a big joke that pictures with filesizes above 150 kB was knocking at the
minds of the programmers.... while today picture file sizes above 5 MB become common....
5 MB was in that days the limit of a entire harddisk with the weight of nearly 3 lbs.!!! LOL...

If the size would have kept it´s relation to the storage size - imagine how much
of weight a Handy would have today with it's ability to store up to 500 such pictures of that size.... LOL

speedyG

Offline
Last seen: 1 year 1 month ago
Joined: May 27 2009 - 01:37
Posts: 1002
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Yes! User's groups disks. Why didn't I think of that?

speedyG's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 10 months ago
Joined: Nov 16 2011 - 07:45
Posts: 2493
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Hello Keatah,

here just some sort of cut and paste after short review:

/TAWUG.UTIL.2 ALU BIN 17 /TAWUG.UTIL.1 Living Legends Software -
Donald Elton file packer/unpacker maintain and manipulate large files for faster up/down loading ALU.DOCS TXT 30 /

/TAWUG.UTIL.1 RETURNS FOR TEXT FILE adds carriage returns to every line of AW text file like conventional text files - useful for posting BBS bulletins
ASQ SYS 18 /TAWUG.UTIL.1 LIVING LEGENDS SOFTWARE - DONALD ELTON SQUEEZE PROGRAM compress programs to save space
AUSQ BIN 8/TAWUG.UTIL.1 Living Legends Software - Donald Elton unsqueeze program uncompress programs from ASQ

/TAWUG.UTIL.1 REVELSTONE
BBS documentation for PROPACKER.III
PROPACKER.III BIN 11
/TAWUG.UTIL.1 Revelstone BBS disk packer packs DOS 3.3 or PRODos disks

Green Disk 6b - MicroEd Library Disk 4
*A 004 NOTES: TRACK ADDER *A 004 NOTES: UNFP
*B 003 PACK *A 007 PICTURE PACKER
*B 020 TOOTHBRUSH.C A 003 PN3
*A 013 TWO LABEL PRINTER *B 002 UN-PACK
*B 002 UNFP *A 005 PICK-A-BASE

Script-Central Catalog
Here's our brief description of all 22 issues of Script-Central.

Issue 9: This is the first issue where file compression is employed.
After the Installer copies all the files to your hard drive, double
click on the file named "Double.Click.Me" to complete the installation.

Issue 11: On this issue, everything has been compressed. After running
the Installer, just launch the HyperCard stack and it will oversee that
all the files get uncompressed.

...these screens were created by professional computer artist
Mary Ann Trzyna. We also have a new XCMD -- SetPrefix.SRC -- that was
created to help uncompress this entire issue by copying the files to a
very specific pathname; feel free to use this in your own stacks. And,
finally, we have a stand alone GS/OS application program, rSounder,
which allows you to convert your old "raw binary" sound files to
resource based rSounds.

ZZZ-UNK-Util1 (19xx)(-).dsk

AUGE Disks:

007
/GS.8Bit.01/Utilities
DIGIPACK.GS
SYS
Archiving of complete diskettes, supports all types.
Only runs on a IIGS, 80-column screen, mouse control
Version 1.0

007
/GS.8Bit.01/Utilities
DDD
SYS
Disk utilities for packing/unpacking of disks/files, optimisation of disks
formatting, etc. - 40 column screen only

013
/GS.Telecomm.01/Sonstiges
SQUEEZE3
SYS
A simple packer; after packing, the data files end with .QQ
Overtaken by ShrinkIt
Version 3.02 by Don Elton
013
/GS.Telecomm.01/Sonstiges
UNSQUEEZE
SYS
Unpack data files which have been packed with Squeeze.
Overtaken by ShrinkIt
Version 2.03 by Don Elton

014
/GS.Utilities.01
DEARCV1.2
S16
Extracts ARC files from archives, can now also process packed files

017
/GS.Shellstuf.01
NUARC
EXE
Lists archives, adds files (unpacked), deletes files from archives,
is a successor to NuView Version 2.0

017
/GS.Shellstuf.01
UNSHARE.TOOL
DIR
Contains a utility which extracts the files from Unix SHAR-archives
as well as C source code

LHEXT
S16
Unpacks LHArc files on the IIGS, recognises .LZH and .LHA Files.
Complete source code is provided.
Version 2.1.0 by Ushiroda Atsushi
116
/GS.Utilities.06
GSHK11.SEA
S16
The latest version of ShrinkIt GS - a program which unpacks itself

sincerely
speedyG

Offline
Last seen: 1 year 1 month ago
Joined: May 27 2009 - 01:37
Posts: 1002
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Lots to research and consolidate.

I used to use The Axe Packer for pictures. Putting something like 3x the amount of pics on a disk. This was heady stuff back in the day. To a shit-faced kid like myself it was miraculous that "special software" could do things like increase storage space. Floppies were naturally "premium priced" to a 10-year old mowing lawns. And every disk saved was a disk earned. So imagine my surprise when I could condense my hi-res picture collection down to size!

I was equally impressed with DriveSpace and DoubleSpace and The Stacker, for PC, and how they worked behind the scenes to actually double the storage space. HDD space was still at a premium in the 486 days, too. Still had to do manual labor and clean bathrooms and do oil changes. So avoiding buying a new HDD was a godsend, 200MB was still over $200!!

Today I use compression for not-often-used archival stuff. With WinRAR being my choice.

I'm not sure where a stopping point should be when covering the early 8-bit stuff. Probably thinking of limiting Part-1 to what works on standard 128K Apple //e. Then move into the IIgs material in Part-2.

speedyG's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 10 months ago
Joined: Nov 16 2011 - 07:45
Posts: 2493
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Hello Keatah,

well there is a version of shrinkit made for use at the //e.....
that should handle most desires....

but still bear in mind that the abilities of compressing data is partially determined by the kind of files....
some do better with graphics, while others do better with sound files....
and some handle large text files or arrays or tables betters than pictures....
that was the main reason, that so many different compression algorythms have been developed....

have fun
speedyG

Offline
Last seen: 1 year 6 months ago
Joined: May 27 2013 - 13:01
Posts: 849
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

When I was transferring disks in the days before the internet, when people used a BBS to communicate, I only used either Shrinkit or DD Deluxe.

There were two major differences between these programs other than the fact that they were different formats.

The first difference was that the compression rate of DD Deluxe was not as good as Shrinkit.

However, DD Deluxe had this nice feature of being able to use advertisements.

Most of us used Shrinkit.

Offline
Last seen: 1 year 1 month ago
Joined: May 27 2009 - 01:37
Posts: 1002
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Shrinkit came later after DDD, didn't it? After modem speeds reached 2400 baud.

For the early days of BBS'ing like at 300/1200 baud and AE lines and Cat-fur and stuff, DDD was top of the line.

Offline
Last seen: 1 year 6 months ago
Joined: May 27 2013 - 13:01
Posts: 849
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

I don't know if Shrinkit came out after 2400 baud.

All I know is that I got into the BBS thing in the late 80's. It was 1988 or 1989.

My first modem was an AE datalink 2400.

Offline
Last seen: 1 year 1 month ago
Joined: May 27 2009 - 01:37
Posts: 1002
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Found some of the Disk Riggers and Fireworx!

Offline
Last seen: 4 years 1 month ago
Joined: Oct 9 2013 - 19:33
Posts: 372
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

Dalton's Disk Disintegrator (before v 2.0) was the default packing program used on many of the AE lines from the early 80's

Disk Rigger, Disk Disintegrator and Disk Splitter were certainly used too, but at least in the Noreast/NY Metro Area (DE thru RI) DDD 1.1 was the defacto standard on a large number of the Apple boards, my own included from 1981 through 1989/1990 when I took it offline. (started as a BBS, no files, but quickly became an AE line)

Metal Communications, Neon Knights and a few other groups of boards all standardized on DDD 1.1, and many others followed suit (and many more had already been doing it!!!)

I had about 120 disks with software still packed with DDD 1.1 when I pulled my apple IIs out of retirement a few years ago.
DDD 1.1 files were easy to spot. First segment had the suffix <0> then <1> etc.
Like many others, all parts were of equal size except the last, which was typically smaller since it was rare software would pack into all equal size parts.

I'll check and see if I have any of the versions of the software you are looking for. I had most all of them at one point as I would unpack software packed with other versions and re-pack using DDD 1.1 to put on the Sider HDD so all my warez (haven't typed THAT word in awhile Wink were all packed with the same program, but not sure if the disks with all of those programs survived. (I know DDD 1.1 did, couldn't find it online initially but found my disk with it and used it to unpack all that old software!!!)
Zan

Offline
Last seen: 1 year 1 month ago
Joined: May 27 2009 - 01:37
Posts: 1002
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

That'd be great. Reminds me I have to check my Sider too.

One of the reasons I I'm preparing a master disk of all these packers is because myself and an old bbs buddy have a load of disks that are packed, not all in the same format either.

Offline
Last seen: 4 years 1 month ago
Joined: Oct 9 2013 - 19:33
Posts: 372
Re: Disk Disintegrators and utilities

I'll make a point to check this evening. I was so psyched when I saw the disk image for DDD online, then totally bummed when I realized DDD 2.2 couldn't unpack the 1.1 files and then totally psyched when I found my copy of it on my old disk!!
Zan

Log in or register to post comments