Date   : Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:16:50 +0000
From   : sai2791@... (Steve Inglis)
Subject: {OT] Decoding a Sparkplug file

On 11 Jan 2009, at 00:18, Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:

>> Message-ID: <81E1C8F9-26C3-4E77-B816-1F39AEA17ED6@...>
>
> Steve Inglis wrote:
>>     Does anyone have any utility that runs on windows, linux or mac
>> that decodes a file that encoded for the archimedes.  I don't have
>
> What do you mean by "for the archimedes"? You can get RISC OS
> archivers and dearchiers for Arc, ARJ, Blk, Cab, CPIO, LBR, LZH,
> McStuff, PackDir, Spark, Squash, Squeeze, Squish, Tar, Zoo, Zip to
> name just a few off the top of my head.

Sorry i didn't specifically say that the site I found the files on  
stated that they were compressed as !Sparkplug files.

>
>
>> access to a real machine, and despite installing !Sparkplug on an
>> emulator cannot get the file to open.
>
> That possibly suggests it's not a Spark file, but the SparkPlug
> help says "unpack all types of RISC OS and PC archives, just drop
> on the icon bar".

I had installed !sparkplug from the basic archive file, but dragging  
the original file to the icon caused a FS error 5.
>
>
> What are the first dozen or so bytes of the file

1A 88 65 5F 64 00 20 B5 97 63 FD 0F 00 00 2C CE

On 10 Jan 2009, at 22:10, Adam Sampson wrote:

>>
>> Does anyone have any utility that runs on windows, linux or mac
>> that decodes a file that encoded for the archimedes.
>
> You probably want nspark (non-free, but source included):
>  ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/archimedes/developers/nspark/
>

Thanks for this, It worked perfectly.



-- 

Steve Inglis