APPLE FILE TRANSFER PACKERS
 
 by Charlie Gipson
 
 One of the problems in Telecommunications has always been the
 length of the files that users often want to send or download!
 To solve this problem, there have been many programs written
 such as Arc, BLU, Propacker and PBH. The variety of programs
 written for this purpose can be very confusing to someone who is
 just starting out with telecommunications! These instructions
 will hopefully help out those who need help , and possibly make
 their sojourn into telecommunications a little less frustrating!
 
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 Propacker versions 3 , 5.3 , and 6
 
      These are all full disk packers, in that they will read a
 whole disk (5.25 or 3.5) and write the contents of the disk to a
 packed file. They are popular primarily on the online services
 that are available such as Genie and Compuserve.
 
 Propacker III          by S. Smith
 
      1. Set your drive defaults to whatever is appropriate, and
         choose the function you want. (pack or unpack).
 
      Propacker III files are usually indicated by having XX. in
      front of the filename . (at least on genie..)
      The filetype should be $F5 or COMM.
 
 Propacker 5.3          by R. Banning
 
      1. Use the 'R' command to set your default drive.
      2. To pack..your default drive is your source, and you must
         type a pathname to be your target. (/disk/filename).
      3. To unpack..your default drive is your target, and you
         must type your source pathname.
 
 Propacker 6.0          by R. Banning and M. Davis
 
      1. Use the 'C' command to set your default drive,
      2. To pack..your default drive is your source, and you must
         type a pathname for your target.
      3. to unpack..your default is your target drive, and you
         type a pathname for your source.
 
 All of the above have bugs in different areas, on different
 systems..so you will have to play with them to figure out what
 to do on your particular system. If you have problems unpacking
 a file, change it's filetype to $F5 or COMM and try again.
 
 
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 PBH 2.1                by Mr. Nybble
 
      PBH pack is very popular with the telecommunications
 community. It is the preferred packer on most private bulletin
 boards. It is a whole disk packer , and is very efficient,as it
 packs into a REL filetype, as did it's predecessor..DDD.
      At least one terminal program (Proterm) supports this
 filetype for disk sends and recieves , and will automatically
 unpack as it downloads if you wish.
 
      1. Set your device (default drive)
      2. To pack..your device is your source drive, and you will
         type a pathname for it to write to. (/drive/filename)
      3. To unpack..your device is your target drive, and you
         will type a pathname for your source file.
 
 
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 Diskmasher 2.5         by Doctor Death
 
      Diskmasher is also a full disk packer and works about like
 PBH does. It seems to be fairly popular in the eastern part of
 the United States, but it is not unusual to find it on local
 boards either.
 
      1. Set your prefix and your filename.
      2. Set your target drive.
      3. To unpack..your prefix/filename is your source, and your
         target will be written to.
      4. To pack..your target is your source, and your
         prefix/filename will be written to.
 
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 De-Arc.GS 1.2          by Tim Swihart  (ARC. copyrighted by
                                         Thom Henderson)
 
      Dearc.gs will de-arc almost any .arc file, from any other
 system, which is handy if you want to use graphics from a IBM,
 or a Music Studio file from an Atari. It only works on the Apple
 ][gs, and as the GS has proven to be rather adaptable...this
 makes for some interesting conversions! It is very easy to use,
 and doesnt seem to be very buggy.
 
      1. Set your archive's pathname/filename.
      2. Hit 'E' to extract.
 
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 BLU                    by Floyd Zink Jr.
         (with compression routines from Don Elton)
 
      BLU (Binary Library Utility) has come a long way from the
 first version . This program is a takeoff on the original
 bny.up, and bny.dwn programs that have long been availabe for
 the apple..with squeeze/unsqueeze added to it! It is probably
 the easiest to use of all the packers, and is about the only one
 that will allow you to pack individual files efficiently. As
 documentation is readily available , I will only cover the basic
 commands.
 
      1. Choose either M/make a bny file of E/extract from a bny
         file.
      2. To make..type a pathname for target. and select files to
         be packed, and hit return .
      3. To extract..choose pathname/filename and specify target.
         Select file to extract from, and hit return.
 
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      This doesnt cover all of the packers that are available,
 but does say something about most of the popular ones! I hope
 that this little document will save someone some grief...as
 there is nothing as frustrating as having a neat file, and not
 being able to do anything with it!
                                        have fun!!
 
                                   Charlie Gipson