Spectre 128 Transfers

[goochman]

So I finally got my Spectre 128 working with my UltraSatan II!

I have my old partitions moved over running System 6.0.4 and Finder 6.1.4(maybe 6.1..

I found some Mac software in .SIT format and wanted to try it out. I had StuffIt 1.0 and that didnt seem to work. I got ahold of StuffIt 3.6 Trial version and had no luck either.

I think I am having a problem with the Transverter program moving from ST->Mac.

I was able to move the StuffIt36.BIN file over and it ran just fine.

I have not been able to transfer any of the .SIT files successfully (atleast StuffIt claims they are corrupt and I get an unexpected EOF).

The options for the Transverter 4.6 program are as follows (Ive tried every combination with no luck):

MacBinary or Unary
Strip LF's or Leave LF's
Type: TEXT Creator:????

I have a feeling the LF and Creator may come into play here, however all my SIT files show up as corrupt.

I had someone test them on a real Mac and they worked fine so somewhere in the translation I am having a problem.

The Transverter program is a bit limited - I dont know if there is anything else that can do the move? It did work for the StuffIt36.BIN installer - just the .SIT files seem to not work?

[Dal]

I would wager that the resource forks are becoming lost in the file copy. Do the SIT's retain their Stuffit icon when viewed under System 6?

[Dal]

also how big are the sit files? It appears that the transverter application can only transfer files by caching the entire file in RAM first. So if the file is bigger than your free RAM then you're out of luck...

[goochman]

Most of the files are small.

It does not retain the .SIT icon after transfer

.BIN files work fine - the .SIT files it thinks are ASCII/TEXT files..............not sure how to fool this thing?

Are .SIT files binary?

[Dal]

Right transfer from a non Mac platform to OS <=9 could only be done by wrapping the resource forks up with the data at the mac side first. The formats commonly used to do this were:
.hqx (BinHex)
.bin (MacBinary)
.sit.bin (MacBinary encoded SIT)

If you have the working SIT file on a mac, then use Stuffit to convert it to a MacBinary encoded SIT (.sit.bin). - Transfer this to your ST Then use Transverter with the following settings:
MacBinary
Leave LF's
Type: Not sure about this one, but I think it would be used to identify the default application. Does it have a selection of types you can use?? See if some kind of binary setting is there? If it's free text then type "Stuffit Expander" and see what happens

If you don't have the file on a mac, then download and install Resedit on your Spectre (probably not a bad idea anyway). It was the tool of the day to recreate the resource forks for those files that slip through the net, you should be able to find a copy of that somewhere online... My memory is a bit faded but I seem to remember it was pretty easy to figure out. Assuming you transfered the SIT as binary with no LF stripping, then you stand the best chance of salvaging something that will decompress.

[goochman]

Good info thanks - I have a few .hqx files also which seem to be indentified as text also.

Im going from ST->Mac so Ill try to find the ResEdit program to see if that helps.

Unfort the Transverter never got updated nor a competing product came out. I guess with the GCR it was assumed using real Mac disks would be the norm

[Dal]

Sorry - I forgot to add sea.bin (used by Apple all the time) and you may lso come across .smi and .img - although these were disk image formats rather than for individual files (it all seemed the 'norm' back then but today would be viewed as a right ball ache!).

Let me know how it goes with resedit. I have found a copy for you here (I think sea.bin files are natively supported in System 6?):

ResEdit_2.1.3.sea.bin.zip

... The board doesn't allow .bin files so I'm afraid I have added another step for you as I've zipped it up!

[goochman]

Thanks - I got Resedit over before seeing this. I dont think Transverter is sending anything over - I open them up in Resedit and of course it says No Resource file found, creating one.

I created a SIT archive on the Mac side to ocmpare - there is a resource object inside (SGet) - the Transverter file has nothing - I attempted to create the same resource with no luck.

I have a trial version of StuffIt on my Windows box - I tried to create a SEA which appears to be the only thing that transfers ok - however it creates a Windows .EXE file and not a .sea.bin like the Mac used.

This is frustrating as I have DiskCopy, System 6.0.8, and a # of other games/utils I want to play with but cant convert to the ST anything related to .SIT of .HQX.......Argh!

[goochman]

I have one more interesting side note - I got the System 6.0.8 files from Apples site in "800k" format. It was a .SEA.BIN file so it transferred ok.

When I ran it I tried to install it on an 800k disk formatted by Spectre - I got an Error -43. I tried it on one of my MFS drives - Error -43.

I formatted the disk under Mac emulation and tried again - it worked but ran out of space (funny, I have an 800k disk!)

For the heck of it I formatted one of my HD partitions under Mac emulation and tried it again - it worked, but is a DiskCopy iamge...........

Anyhow - it was weird that it would not work with any disk formatted outside of the Mac system.

[bid]

Hi,

I have just got a GSR, and I everything is going great apart from the PC to Mac floppy converstion!

I have System 6.0.8 disks on the PC in SEA.BIN format, and the Stuffit software does not seem to like this file type any more!!

So I have not been able to find a way to get the 4 system 6 disks onto 4 floppies so that I can install on the GSR.

It looks like Dave Small did a good job on the GSR, and actually making a Mac Hard Drive is very straight forward and the Manual is great. Just as always the PC to Mac bit is a problem. Can anyone please help??!!

Cheers, Bid