Convert music archive to .zip

dazdaz · Post by **dazdaz** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 3:55 pm

Seeing as most people have PC's, it would be nice to see the entire website / music files converted to .zip file format.

Yes I know deliplayer can handle .lha, but it just makes life much much easier for everyone if their in .zip.

Thanks

XtC · Post by **XtC** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 4:23 pm

Amiga owners have never had a problem extracting LhA archives, and since they've been fully accomodated for on the PC with WinRAR (WinACE and almost with WinZIP) why is there a need to change the archive format

LhA and LZX AFAIK are the only commonly used archivers that preserve Amiga file comments - and every file on UnExoticA (including the newer demo section) and most on ExoticA have crucial file comments that would be lost if converted to ZIP

Hopefully, that answers your request

dazdaz · Post by **dazdaz** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 4:59 pm

As you indicate, Winzip requires an external LHA program.

http://www.winzip.com/xextern.htm

Are you referring to the embedded file comments? Your right, we should preseve everything, can't these be converted to ZIP Comments or as seperate files?

I thought you'd mention that

I use a PC to listen to tunes and use emulators to relive old times and had assumed everyone else here did the same, but now i'm not sure what percentage are Commodore Amiga owners and which are PC owners. I'm not saying move away from the Amiga, i'm saying lets make it easier for the majority of users.

I'd also like to see a large zip of many of the mods online. It does'nt have to be everything, but how about the top 500 or something?

Work out file size, bandwidth availability, and guestimates amount of downloads to see if it's viable. I don't see why not.

asle · Post by **asle** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 6:53 pm

here you go ... wasn't really that hard, you see ?.

#/bin/sh
cd /temp
for i in /your_path/*.lha
do
lha x $i
j=sed 's/\.lha/\.zip/g' $i
zip $j *
#I amend with a move

.. wont zip every other zip already zipped

mv $j /your_path
done

Regards,
Sylvain

dazdaz · Post by **dazdaz** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 7:10 pm

Bonjour mon amie,

Was that for me or the website owner?

Assuming it was for me

it'd just make life easier for people who would like to download music and play it on the PC.

I get the impression there is a lot of opposition to this logic, but it's not clear exactly why? Change?

If it's *really* an issue, then why not have .zip and lha/lzh archived file available?

User friendliness for all is the key.

Vive le Amiga.

Regards

asle · Post by **asle** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 7:24 pm

err. that was for you.
storing both .zip and .lha is way too expensive, "storing-size-wise". Besides, there are countless unlha proggy on PC (either Linux/BSD/Plan9/Win*/whatever). User friendly you say ?. Well, it _is_ already user friendly. If the files here had been stored in LZX, it would have been a little more problematic, but LHA is clearly a standard. Maybe is not "dazdaz" friendly, but it is for 99,99% ppl over here.
I'm afraid your question wont go farther than that. Don't go thinking ppl here are not open !. Just take it as "it's already as open as possible for every system around".

Regards,
Sylvain

dazdaz · Post by **dazdaz** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 7:44 pm

Dude, my friend, relax, it's merely a suggestion, don't take it personally.

Mods and other format Amiga music I would like to think should be more readily accessible to the masses of new people out there. What we're doing is hoarding it all up for ourselves with a small piece of knowledge that decodes the music.

LHA is an Amiga standard. ZIP is a PC standard. I don't believe lha is PC friendly for the majority of users. Of course we know that you can play it in DeliPlayer, but lots of people use Winzip and Winamp along with lha.exe winrar etc.

How about a voting poll to see if anyone thinks it would be a good idea, you don't have to vote, but please don't veto.

Again, it's merely a suggestion to help people.

Regards

XtC · Post by **XtC** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 9:07 pm

dazdaz, I think it's unfair to say ExoticA is, "hoarding it all up for
ourselves" when all the files are openly available to public.

Anyone who wants the latest players to add to DeliTracker/Player,
EaglePlayer, UADE will discover that they are also archived in either LhA or
LZX format!

The real fact of the matter is that to be able to play all the formats
covered by ExoticA you would need a player other than WinAMP.

Finally, this "small piece of knowledge that decodes the music", the LhA
unarchiver, is supported by Unix, Linux, Windows, etc. as well as AmigaOS.

kyz · Post by **kyz** » Fri Mar 14, 2003 11:35 am

dazdaz wrote:LHA is an Amiga standard. ZIP is a PC standard. I don't believe lha is PC friendly for the majority of users. Of course we know that you can play it in DeliPlayer, but lots of people use Winzip and Winamp

Actually, LHA was originally written for MS-DOS PCs since 1988 by Dr. Haruyasu Yoshizaki. It has remained the main PC archiver in Japan since then. It is the North American BBS community that made ZIP popular. It is no more a standard today than RAR, CAB or StuffIt. Urban M&ller chose Amiga LhA as the standard for Aminet, and that's why most Amigas use it.

The worst thing in the world, in my opinion, is WinZIP. It is popular simply because it is popular. They use the free and open zlib library to do the hard work of creating and unpack ZIP files, all the other archivers depend on external executables or DLLs being available, and all they have added on top of that is a graphical interface. Now WinZIP is famous for being famous and they get all the money, for doing nothing. Meanwhile, Eugene Roshal continues to update RAR to improve its compression, other graphical archivers like PowerArchiver support different archiving standards natively, and they hardly get any fame, money or recognition for doing so.

The point is, there is the stereotypical PC user who runs WinZIP / WinAmp / IE / Outlook and doesn't want to try anything more exotic than that. They would prefer an MP3 encoding of an old Amiga tune that was badly converted to Protracker. ExoticA isn't providing that, it provides the original music in the original format with full details of composer and even box art occasionally. To hear the music authentically, it should be played on a real Amiga, the nearest alternative if you insist on using a PC is UAE or DeliPlayer. And yes, I also recommend playing SIDs on a real C64 and S3M modules on a real PC.

If you think it's better to provide the music in ZIP format, then please run another website or use a website that already operates like that (for example, Back 2 the roots). BuZz doesn't mind websites using material originally made available at ExoticA provided they ask his permission first.

shd_ · Post by **shd_** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 12:50 am

dazdaz wrote: LHA is an Amiga standard. ZIP is a PC standard. I don't believe lha is PC friendly for the majority of users.
Regards

ZIP is not a PC standard, it is a Microsoft Windows standard. Altough zips can be easily handled on GNU/Linux and *BSD equipped PCs, it is not a standard on those operating systems.

PS. PC does not imply Windows

shd / uade team
heikki orsila
heikki.orsila@ee.tut.fi
http://ee.tut.fi/~heikki/uade.html

Atomic Skull · Post by **Atomic Skull** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 11:04 am

Keep in mind that the command line LHA familliar to most english PC users hadn't been updated since 1988 or so, while the Amiga (and japanese PC) versions have kept going. What this means is that it won't handle LHA files made by modern LHA apps.

There are a few japanese Win32 LHA apps around, LASA is one of them (though it still won't handle some of the LHA's in the archive)..

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 11:07 am

shd_ wrote:
dazdaz wrote: LHA is an Amiga standard. ZIP is a PC standard. I don't believe lha is PC friendly for the majority of users.
Regards
ZIP is not a PC standard, it is a Microsoft Windows standard. Altough zips can be easily handled on GNU/Linux and *BSD equipped PCs, it is not a standard on those operating systems.

PS. PC does not imply Windows

shd / uade team
heikki orsila
heikki.orsila@ee.tut.fi
http://ee.tut.fi/~heikki/uade.html

Zip is a windows standard?? Funny that, I guess my recollection of using a command line version of PKZip in DOS back in 1987 must be a figment of my senile imagination..

Old age must be getting to me.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Apr 19, 2003 10:39 am

hehe, well... DOS, WinDOS where's the difference

Nah, seriously... I think, the point Heikki/shd tried to make that is that on different OS different archivers are de facto standards because of different needs.

"ZIP" is extensively used in the M$ world, tar-balls on *nix, lha/lzx on the Amiga, sit/hqx on Mac..."

btw... I have to admit I don't do windows too much these days, but wasn't Winzip able to handled lha:s by using that old dos util?

mld

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Convert music archive to .zip

Convert music archive to .zip

ZIP is not a PC standard

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