Msg: 6776 *Conference*

08-28-96 14:29:03

From: RON WIESEN

To : ROBERT BENSON

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #6772 (OS FOR RAMPAK)

This may sound simplistic of me Bob, but while on-line the Club 100 library
provides us with access to "so-called" .BA files that actually are ASCII forms.
In other words, what's shown with a .BA file name in the Club 100 library is in
fact downloaded as ASCII.  So where you say you transferred ".BA files from the
library", you may have forgotten that they are actually ASCII and hence more
like .DO files.
 
For that matter, if a file is not the format which it's file name extension
would suggest then file transfer utilities would indeed make quite a mess
within the RAM of the laptop.  .BA suggests tokenized line-delimited BASIC that
ends with a NUL triplet.  .CO suggests binary preceeded by a 6-byte header
denoting TOP, LEN, and EXE addresses for the HIMEM region of the laptop.  .DO
suggests ASCII that ends with an EOF.
 
Sorry to belabor this issue Bob.  I spent considerable time investigating the
conflict between NPL and disk utilities (FLOPPY, TS-DOS, TINY, TEENY, D, etc)
and found only a conflict for ASCII (.DO) files - specifically the presence or
lack of terminating EOF on the media.  Nowhere in this investigation did I find
conflict regarding with tokenized BASIC or with binary file formats in the
media.  Once again I must pester you with this question.  Otherwise, somehow my
investigation (and file back-up methology) failed to find concern outside of
ASCII file format on the media (disk versus RAMPAC).  Simply put the question
is: are you REALLY REALLY REALLY SURE that those files with .BA file name
extensions were TOKENIZED BASIC file formats?