DevWare Disk 54: Compression - Complete ADF Download

[intric8]

Contents: AmigArc, LHARC, LHWARP, PowerPacker, PPMore, PKAX, Warp, ZOO, DiskMasher

The original DD0054 Compression disk from DevWare

Download DevWare Disk 54 - Compression

In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, an Amiga-focused company called DevWare based out of La Jolla, California, produced PD (public domain) libraries on disk for consumers to order. I’ve decided to publish some of the more useful and interesting disks in full ADF format. In addition, I’ve transcribed the main Read Me files below in their original text (with some typos fixed along the way).

Each program generally has its own individual Read Me file as well, which I encourage you to read in order to use the programs fully. This particular disk is full of very useful compression programs that are to be run from the CLI.

None of the programs on this disk have WB icons - it was a space-saving strategy by DevWare in order to provide even more software per-disk. You can either create your own, or simply run each program from the CLI.

The tools included on DevWare's DD 054 Compression Disk

DD 054
Compression

AmigArc - Archive utility, (v0.23)
Around your local BBS, you have begun to notice files with the ARC file extension (xxxxxx.ARC). What makes these files so special is that they are actually compressed files that don’t take as long to download, and they are actually many files within a file.

LHARC

File compression program by Paolo Zibetti. Lharc is an archive program such as Arc and Zoo. It can store several files in one archive in a compressed form which is generally more efficient than that used by Arc and Zoo. It also supplies all of the archive.

LHWARP (v 1.03)
A disk tracker for the Amiga by Jonathan Forbes. Lhwarp is a program which will read tracks directly from your floppy disk, compress them, and output them to a file. This allows for complete disk transfers.

PowerPacker
A compression routine for use with executable files. This program when used on your workbench disk will greatly improve the disk space available. Excellent for those of you without hard disks!!

PPMore
A compression routine for text files. Greatly reduces the size of a text file. Allows for easy viewing all text files that are compressed.

PKAX
A FAST! archive extraction utility that extracts files from an archive and restores them to their original name, size, time and date. It is completely compatible with all other ARC type programs including PKWARE’s FAST! archive create/update utility PKZIP.

WARP (v 2.0)
The FAST data compressor!

ZOO 2.00
File compression and archiver. Also comes with booz extract only utility and Fnames, a disk organizer pre-compressor.

DiskMasher
Archives an entire disk into a single file.


READ ME 1
DevWare Public Domain Library©, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989

This disk contains public domain software collected and cataloged by DevWare Inc. Our library is composed of three different series. Our “DevDisk” series contains tools and information for the Amiga software developer and power user (often source code is provided), our “WorkBench” series is designed to be of general interest to all people, these programs can generally be used from the WorkBench, our “FunDisk” series is made up of fun and games programs..

In many cases individual disks in a series are catalogued by theme (fonts, utilities, pacman lookalike games…). We try to fill each disk to capacity with as many high quality programs as are available. As a company we at DevWare are dedicated to providing you, the consumer, with quality programs and examples, not quantity; therefore our library doesn’t have 100’s of disks but only a few disks packed with high quality programs.

We would like to offer you as a caution, as a consumer of public domain programs several firms exist out there that provide only one or two programs per disk and charge full price. There are several firms that produce good high quality public domain libraries and also fill their disks full with programs. We suggest that you support these firms.

We have made it easy to tell which series is which; the first two letters of a disk represent the series, DD# is the “DevDisk” series, WB# is the “WorkBench series, and FD# is the “FunDisk” series.

Note: Most of the files on your “DevDisk” series do not have icons. If you are not familiar with the CLI, you will have difficulty getting at the files from this series. If you have not learned CLI yet there is much published information available for you to learn (it’s really not that hard). In addition to the books published on AmigaDOS and the CLI, there are numerous articles in magazines like Info, Antic Amiga Plus or Compute! Amiga Resource.

Please be aware that our library is generally not on a bootable WorkBench disk. You will need to boot off your own Workbench to use the programs on this disk. We have done this so that we can pack as much useful stuff on each disk possible.

In addition to maintaining the DevDisk public domain library, DevWare Inc. also produces the DevWare line of software products. To get on our mailing list send a letter to:

DevWare Inc.
PO Box 215
La Jolla, CA 92038-0215

Also available from DevWare is a disk based catalog, to order send $2.50 to the above address. Order our catalog and receive a coupon for a free disk on your next order.

We are always looking for new software — if you are interested, please contact us. We also make pre-duplicated copies of the DevWare library available for sale at users groups and in computer stores. We welcome your comments and criticisms.

Legal Notice:

DevWare Inc. makes no representations or warranties with respect to the contents of this disk and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. To the best of our knowledge, all of the software on this disk is freely distributable. Some of the items on this disk may be “shareware”, where the author requests a small donation from users of the software. We encourage the shareware idea and urge you to support these developers in their efforts.

Amiga is a trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

This “ReadMe” file, the associated DevWare catalog files, and the label and format of this disk are Copyrighted © 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 by DevWare Inc.

—- End of File —


READ ME 2

Due to space limitations we could not set up icons for the readme’s and directories on this disk. Therefore, to access any of the files on this disk you must use a CLI or shell. Please explore this disk fully, there are many directories with directories. It is also possible that many of these programs that don’t currently have workbench icons, might be able to be run from the Workbench with the use of IconX. We leave that as an exercise for the industrious person due to disk space.

Also, some of the programs may be archived themselves so that they may fit on the disk (for instance, the program PowerPacker is archived with the ZIP utility. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you, but I’m sure you’ll be happy to have the extra utilities at the expense of un-archiving them once! :^)


—- End of File —

The crazy DevWare disk icon

Note by AmigaLove: It is our understanding that the Amiga-focused company DevWare was dissolved as of 2001.

Download DevWare Disk 54 - Compression

[DevWare Pres]

What a blast from the past. It is really cool to see our work is still out there. I am surprised the disks are not way corrupted with age.

[intric8]

@DevWare Pres - so glad to see you here, sir!

I've got a few more very cool DevWare disks here I will share soon. I tip my cap to you and all you did for the Amiga community back in the day. And it's still super valuable and helpful to this day for some of us.

[intric8]

Here are a few more that I plan to explore, share and immortalize in the near future.

More disks from the deep DevWare PD catalog.

I need to do another full accounting and see if I have any others.

[intric8]

And a few more. I think this is all I have - and a couple require 2.0+ to run.

I've moved the terminals over. The Access! Terminal actually looks awesome, but is shareware (requires keys). I in fact have the full version, but haven't yet figured out how to install my keys for it.

Would like to figure that out as the terminal looks very cool (seriously, it does).

[DevWare Pres]

That disk format did not exist in those days, so no none saved. You also are representing some of the original disk labels there as well. We had to cut those out by hand and formatted each one on an Amiga. The color labels are done on a duplicating machine. Thank god!

[LambdaCalculus]

Hey intric8, just out of curiosity, what tool do you use for creating ADFs from floppies? I've been using TSGui on my setup since it runs on pretty much every WB/AmigaOS version out there and has disk > ADF support and also reverse (ADF > disk).

[intric8]

I use Amiga Explorer from Colanto. When I bought Amiga Forever I think it came along as part of the package. But there's a $10 stand-alone version. Super handy piece of software.

This installs a small program on your Amiga, which you connect to PC using a null modem cable. It works like this:

1. You install the AExplorer program on your Amiga. More here
2. You install the Amiga Explorer program on your PC. I use an old XP Toughbook. But you could use a more modern version of Windows, too.
3. Once both programs are running, if I insert a floppy disk on my Amiga I will see it on my PC - it shows both the drive and the adf.
4. I can then click and drag the adf I see in the Explorer program to my PC's desktop. This slowly copies the ADF from Amiga to PC in the ADF format perfectly.
5. Once there, I typically move the file to Dropbox (or wherever) to organize it and keep it. For-Ev-Vah!

Then I upload it to amigalove.com and share it.

I should make a 5-minute video of the process (actually, I have since made such a video). There are a lot of ways to go about it (and free ways, too), but this is how I do it and it's rather seamless. Hm... maybe I do that this weekend.

[Zippy Zapp]

These look familiar. I need to go through my disks and see if some are in there. I had all sorts of these types of disks back then. I still have all my disks so they have to be someplace.

Thanks for sharing! Thank you also DevWare. Nice to meet some of the people responsible for this goodness back then.

[intric8]

So guys, I just acquired more than 50 additional DevWare disks.

Would there be any desire from you all for these to be made available - similar to the Games Library? I very much want to catalog a lot of my PD collection: which is different than Aminet in that:

• They are hand-curated collections.
• Some of the software isn't found in Aminet.