A new enough version of Stuffit Expander should automatically apply a new
resource fork to sit files that have lost theirs. All that is in a sit's
resource fork is the type and creator codes and the icon. But you have to
launch Expander and open the file, or create a desktop alias to Expander then
drop the forkless sit file on it. That's when Expander will apply a new
resource fork.
MacBinary and BinHex are safe ways to transfer classic Mac files over the
internet. MacBinary (BIN) encodes the file to 8 bit text. BinHex (HQX) encodes
the file to 7 bit text, but the files will be about 1/8th larger than MacBinary.
Why there are two different ways is due to the nature of the early internet.
Back when it started the majority of communication across it was in text,
*English* text. Since it was Americans who invented most of this stuff, they
used ASCII. American Standard Code for Information Interchange. All the ASCII
codes for the English alphabet, numbers and common punctuation have a 0 at one
end of the byte. I'd have to look it up to see which end. To cut transmission
time and bandwidth usage by 1/8th the early internet systems only transmitted
the 7 important bits of each byte because that 8th bit was *always zero*. Thus
the destination system could simply stick a zero on every byte and the text
would be fine.
But then people wanted to send binary data like programs and photos. The
systems had to be upgraded to transmit whole bytes. That took a while. If your
binary data came through scrambled, it got routed through a 7 bit system that
flipped every 1 in that 8th bit to a 0. You could either try finding a way to
re-route the data to an all 8 bit path or use a text encoding method
(UUENCODE/UUDECODE or BinHex) to use only ASCII text with 7 bit safe
characters. Classic Mac web browsers and FTP programs can usually be setup to
automatically decode BinHex and MacBinary.
For quite a while many websites with Mac software downloads had a couple of
small test files, one in BIN and one in HQX, with a note to first try
downloading the BIN to see if it came through OK. If not, try the HQX. If the
BIN download failed you were unlucky enough to have some creaky old piece of 7
bit equipment in the path between their server and your Mac. When connections
were often metered for time and/or amount of data downloaded, the 1/8th larger
BinHex files could eat into your allotment or add up to extra cost.
On Wednesday, April 18, 2018, 7:53:59 PM MDT, Todd B
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I have no trouble moving .hqx files that I have download to my modern Mac over
the serial line to my classic Mac, but I can't get .sit files to go. I have
tried a few ways.
My basic technique is to transfer a file via YMODEM using Serial on the modern
Mac and White Knight on the classic Mac. File transfer works great and for .hqx
files I can de-hqx and go from there with no problem.
For .sit files I have tried to transfer via YMODEM and then 1) change the
creator to match what I expect for .sit file (SITD/SIT!) or 2) I try to binhex
the .sit file on my modern Mac (using OldHex or one of the online tools) and
then transfer the file to the classic Mac and try to de-hqx it there. It decdes
from hqx fine, but the resulting .sit file isn't valid (after changing the
creator and type).
Greatly appreciate any help.
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