From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: .arc files?
Summary: Get 119808 Feb 27 1989 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/pk361.exe
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 07:35:09 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.154820.145@janus.arc.ab.ca> morgan@arc.ab.ca (Sean Morgan) writes:
>That about covers it!

-From: garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tsfaq30.zip Frequently Asked Questions

13. *****
 Q: What is this file with this .zip (.arc, .arj, .lzh, .pak, .sdn,
.zoo) extension? What am I supposed to do to it?
 Q2: I can't run this file I got with a .zip extension.

 A: This is a PC newcomers's question, but that is perfectly all
right. One has to start from somewhere. These files with a .zip
(.arc, .arj, .lzh, .pak. .zoo) extension are compressed collections
of files, often called archives. You are not supposed to run a
compressed entity. You are supposed to unpack it first to extract
the files from within the package. For this you need the relevant
(un)packing program. You can find them in the /pc/arcers directory
at the anonymous ftp site garbo.uwasa.fi, SIMTEL20, their mirrors,
or at practically any fine bulletin board. (After you have gotten
them, they are very easy to process, since most often these
utilities are self-extracting). At the time of writing this we have
eg
  arc602.exe     .arc  SEA's .arc packing/unpacking system.
  arj230ng.exe   .arj  Robert Jung's .arj archiver
  lh113de.com    .lzh  Lharc for .lzh compression
  lha213.exe     .lzh  LHa for .lzh compression, English version.
  pak251.exe     .pak  NoGate's for pak, arc, sdn, zip, files
  pk361.exe      .arc  This packed and unpacked .arc files fast
  pkz110eu.exe   .zip  PKZIP "Euroversion" with no encryption
  unzip50.exe    .zip  Info-ZIP group's 1.93A compatible extractor
  zoo210.exe     .zoo  Zoo packing facility from Rahul Dhesi
Always use the latest version. For example we have been getting many
false alarms of allegedly corrupt .zip packages just because users
have been applying out of date PKUNZIP versions.
   Once you are well familiar with unpacking and packing, there is
an excellent shell for running these utilities. It is called SHEZ
and is in version /pc/arcutil/shez80.zip at the time I wrote this
item.
   Another advanced feature once you get the hang of this, is that
(most of) these are available in the Unix environment, as well. See
the /unix/arcers directory at garbo.uwasa.fi archives for the Unix
versions. Eg you can find zoo210.tar.Z in there, etc. See
/pc/unix/0news-u for more on the Unix versions.
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..................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous FTP archives 128.214.87.1
Faculty of Accounting & Industrial Management; University of Vaasa
Internet: ts@uwasa.fi Bitnet: salmi@finfun   ; SF-65101, Finland