Date   : Sat, 18 Sep 1982 0840-:00PDT
From   : Jeffrey@Office-2
Subject: "UNLOAD"-like function for non-COM files

Is there a program which is similar to UNLOAD but processes
arbitrary files?

I assume it would decompose an arbitrary file to a string of
printable characters.  There would also need to be an inverse
function to recompose the original file from the decomposition
(i.e. the printable representation).

One use for such a program (and its partner) would be to
facilitate transmission of files where tools like
MODEM were inappropriate.

If I were spec'ing such a tools I would consider:

   - compression (maybe by simply doing some special processing
     on repeated strings of length one or two).

   - validity checks (probably would want to include a checksum
     as the last line of the printable format version;  this
     would be checked by the reconstituter).


If there are interesting answers, I'll publish to the group.

By the way, one of my previous querys asked about despooler
boards for the S100.  I received a number of responses - all but
one response just wanted to receive my responses.  One respondant
suggested that Sierra Data Sciences S100 slave board wa worth looking
into.  For the moment, I'm going to let that one slide.
Its a big project if i start from scratch.


Jeffrey Stone
Menlo Park, CA