Hi! |
A|A
(n n)
\_/
Continuing my digging into the heap of old EMs (I'm about
at Jan. 23rd), I've got some EMs about "Dragon Slayer",
"Legend of Heroes" and "Xanadu". It is very, very, very long
since I last played "Dragon Slayer - Legend of Heroes" (MSX,
of course), but I don't remember it being called "Dragon Slayer
VI" anywhere. It shouldn't, because it is an independent series
from the beginning. If it is indeed named "D.S.6" in MSX, then
it is another unique game for the system, 'cause all other have
it as the first of the new series. That's the reason its sequels
has nothing to do with the other "Dragon Slayer" sequels (except
for the background environment, of course).
And what does "Xanadu" have to do with it all. Simple, Xanadu,
in the "Dragon Slayer" world, is a country. MSX "Xanadu" is an
adventure on that country. There is an "anime" (Japanese animation
movie) named "Xanadu - Dragon Slayer Densetsu" (`Xanadu - The
Legend of Dragon Slayer'). Why? "Dragon Slayer" is the name of a
legendary sword (that can slay dragons?) The hero of the story is
a young soldier from Earth's 21st century, thrown into the "Dragon
Slayer"'s world by an unknown event. Well, won't tell more, it
wouldn't be fair if someone is planning to watch it. I warn that
it's not a wonderful "anime", it has many "lost cues" (imagine what
someone used to technology would be able to do in an almost rural
world - okay, they have magic, but it's not great a thing if you are
not endowed with the magical essence, and most people are not... yes,
okay, only the "right" ones and the final boss). Anyway, that's
what "Dragon Slayer" is about, a magical sword (okay, said too
much already...) I personally prefer "Madara" (unfortunately, never
released by Konami to MSX - indeed, never released to anything but
Famicom).
About self-extracting archives: most of them (well, all I had
the chance to use) can be normally extracted with the proper tool.
"Exempli gratia", if you have an "AUTOUNPK.EXE", which is a Zip
SFX file, you can command:
unzip -l AUTOUNPK.EXE
... And see the contents of the file. There is no need to execute
the file itself (indeed, except when no independent tool is available,
like stupid Windowsky packages, I use my own tools to avoid virus -
only my Japanese package is currently unextractable except by itself).
The same is valid for self-extractor of ARJ, RAR and LHA/LZH. Do
not tested UltraCompressor, but then, it is a poor packer (and no
comments about "stuffit").
For PC, there is an on-development EXE-packer (compress and keeps
the file still executable) named Apack. I'm using it, even still
being a beta, because it really smashes things! Far better than
PKLite and Diet, for example. And what does it have to do with MSX?
Unfortunately, nothing, and that's why I'm mentioning it: there is
no EXE-packer for MSX! Or is there and I never realized that? Yes,
right, MSX would run out of memory and the program would be too
slow to start executing. Maybe MSX shouldn't have an EXE-packer...
Could someone find a use to an EXE-packer for MSX...?
Anyway, still on the compression subject, someone complained
about the Zip docs (oh, sorry, once more I deleted the original EM
before the reply - you must understand, there was A LOT of unread
messages in the box...) And it (he/she?) is absolutely right in
complaining! The docs don't and, for a long time, won't contain
the "important" data, that is, the compression algorithms. It
happens that most of them are copyrighted (yes, we live in a world
where ideas can be labelled and hidden in a safe). If someone
really wants to make a PKZip compatible compressor/decompressor,
get QUICK the Info-ZIP's freewares "zip" and "unzip" sources,
they still contain the implementation of all PKZip methods.
The only ones that are really annoying are "shrink" and "unshrink",
the copyright owners* are trying to force the group to keep the
implementations out of the package (they are currently part of the
source files, but they are not compiled "normally", you must make
custom versions if you want to have your "zip" and "unzip" to use
the methods - I tried but couldn't, too much for the poor Boreland
C compiler, and not enough patience/time to set-up DJGPP). The
other methods ("stone", "melt" and so on) work fine in PC (DOS),
Unix (Sun Sparcs, Digital Alphas) and Linux. Only once I got a
file that was "crunched" and had to dig out my PKUnzip (ugh!)
Check "http://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/pc/archivers/" (the address
is correct, it is HTTP to access an old FTP site - FTP is also
available), files "unzip540.zip" (PLEASE, DON'T LAUGH! - yes, the
sources are packed!) and "zip22.zip/zip23k.zip" (the second is
new beta). If you have access to a PC clone, download also the
"self-extractor", so you can extract, later, the sources (look
out for a ".EXE").
*And now, my spamming against the copyright (claimers) owners
of the shrink algorithm. Since 1987, Compuserve has spread a new
image file format, the very well known GIF. It uses an algorithm
named Lempel-Ziv-Huffman (LZH). After ten years, the standard
became, well, a STANDARD. Then, creeping from hell, came a devourer
named Unisys (remember this name in your curses), claiming to have
the copyright of all "artifacts" that could perform LZH compression
and/or decompression. Result, Unisys moved actions against each and
every enterprise that was worth the effort (in "credit points", so
to say). Enterprises paid to avoid a worse fate. Today, all programs
able to handle appropriately GIF files must pay to the damn ****
(choose your favourite "I HATE YOU" word). Of course, other programs
also used LZH (LHA, PKZip and so on) and they also have to pay for
the use of the algorithm (that is not all that good - there are better
around - but files that use it saturate the world). Info-ZIP claims
that "inactive" files containing the algorithm implemented are not
breaking any law (the point has not been tested in court), so the
source for both "shrink" and "unshrink" are available, by now.
This is a history of greedy and evilness that must be told for it
shall never happen again. And so was written...
... Cyberknight...
<Over>
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