[juneau-lug] Re: Stephen, a question about that PowerPC

  • From: "Stephen E. Bodnar" <sbodnar@xxxxxxx>
  • To: juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 19:07:11 -0800

.hqx is binhex - it's a method of turning a binary file into an ASCII 
for sending over networks - you can't really call it compression 
because the binhex files are bigger than the binaries they were 
created from. .sit is a stuffit archive. This was the standard way to 
encode Mac files for download.

Unencoding these is a bit tricky. The easiest way is to get Stuffit 
Expander of the appropriate vintage to run on 7.6. I'm pretty sure it 
is Expander v. 4 but it might be 3. The swatting flies with nuclear 
weapons method is to find a Netscape install of the same vintage and 
there is an option for just installing Stuffit. This is still 
available I believe at ftp.netscape.com. Expander will do the 
unbinhex too.

>Here's another ``I don't know what I'm doing'' question:  How do I
>uncompress (or whatever is appropriate) files like Bootvars.sit.hqx and
>Quick...sit.hqx?  These are some utilities which are supposed to aid in
>getting Linux set up.  The Mac says that it can't find an appropriate
>translator, or some such.  I'm guessing that what I need is probably
>part of the installation, but I don't know what it is or how to use it.
>

OK. Sounds fine. I've never worked with Gentoo, sounds like it would 
be worth the time.

The real problem with the serial terminal was that Macs used RS-422 
and most PC's only have RS-232. If you have another Mac all you have 
to do is hook them up with Appletalk cables and run Zterm. The Open 
Firmware solution for the PowerComputing is a really bad idea. They 
are odd enough being a clone, though Apple actually did maufacture 
the motherboard.


>Yes, Gentoo not only has an installation CD for PPC, but it is supposed
>to have a live filesystem on it.  It probably does, too, but I can't
>vouch for it.  One of the things I learned at the NetBSD link that James
>sent me to (thanks, James!) is that this machine sends console messages
>to a tty by default, so that's probably why I couldn't see anything when
>it loaded up.  So, I'll probably not try to use openfirmware until I get
>a serial cable (null modem, DB9 on each end, right?)
>
>Nels


Good luck - I was going to try a similar thing with that computer but 
just din't have the time!

Stephen


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