PC-to-Mac Jumpstart

This zipfile contains tools needed to move files between your Windows PC and 
Macintosh systems using floppy disks.  Because some folks don't want to read 
lots of "useless" details in docs, the basic procedure comes first, then an
explanation of why these tools are useful follows.

In addition to this ReadMe, the zipfile contains DISKIMG.EXE and pc_mac.img.

The DISKIMG program will create a Macintosh disk on a PC-formatted floppy; it
must be run from a DOS window under Windows 95 or NT.


On the PC side:
---------------

1.	Open a DOS window and CD to the directory containing the pc_mac.img and
	DISKIMG.EXE files.

2.	Put a PC-formatted floppy in drive A.  The floppy must have no bad 
	sectors.  Any data on the disk will be wiped out by running DISKIMG.

3.	Enter at the DOS command prompt: DISKIMG W 1440 pc_mac.img

4.	Tons of status messages will scroll by as the disk is written to.
	Upon completion, the floppy will be a Mac-formatted disk, and you won't
	be able to browse it from DOS or Windows.  Eject it.


On the Mac side:
----------------

1.	Insert the floppy created on the PC.

2.	To install Stuffit Expander, double-click on on the Stuffit Expander 401 
	Installer icon in the window opened from the floppy disk.  Follow the 
	directions in the installer.
	
3.	If you need to install PC Exchange (you probably don't; details below),
	drag the appropriate PC Exchange (7.0 or 7.5) from the floppy window to
	the Mac hard drive.  Double-click on it to run the self-extractor.
	A PC Exchange control panel will emerge from the .sea archive.  Drag 
	it into the System:Control Panels: folder on the hard disk, and reboot
	to make it active.
	

Details, Details...
-------------------

PC Exchange and Stuffit Expander are the two key components for moving files
between a Macintosh and a PC/Windows system. 

PC Exchange is a control panel which adds the ability to read/write PC disks
to the MacOS.  It is included with MacOS versions 7.5 and later.  For systems
earlier than 7.5, an older version of PC Exchange existed.  If it isn't already
on your system, you can install it by simply dropping it in your System Control
Panels folder and rebooting to activate it.  If there is already a PC Exchange
control panel in your Control Panels folder, DO NOT replace it with one from 
this floppy (yours may be newer, depending on your OS version).

Stuffit Expander is the standard Macintosh tool for working with encoded and
compressed archives.  It handles the following file types:

	.bin	MacBinary encoding
	.hqx	BinHex encoding
	.sit	Stuffit compression
	.sea	Self-extracting Stuffit archive

The Stuffit Expander in this package is the freeware version.  You can upgrade
to the shareware version (Expander Enhancer) which also handles .zip, .tar, .tar.Z,
and many other cross-platform archive types.  You can also buy Stuffit Deluxe,
which will create as well as unpack all these archive types.  Visit the Aladdin
website (www.aladdinsys.com) for more information.

Most of the files for Macintosh that you find on the internet will be encoded in
MacBinary (.bin) or BinHex (.hqx) format.  If you have a choice, download the 
MacBinary files; they are typically 1/3 smaller.  (BinHex is an ascii encoding,
similar to UUCoding.)  A Macintosh file often has two pieces, known as the data
and resource forks.  Systems other than Macintosh don't support this dual-fork
scheme of the Mac filesystem, and thus Mac files cannot be stored on or transferred
thru non-Mac systems unless they're encoded.  The MacBinary and BinHex encoding
combine the two forks into a single file, along with some control information 
to allow them to be restored to the Macintosh filesystem in their original dual-
fork format.  A .sit file also preserves the dual-fork nature of the file, but
it also compresses the data using a scheme similar to PKZip.

The easiest way to use Stuffit Expander is via drag-and-drop.  After transferring
an encoded file to the Macintosh hard disk, just drag-and-drop the file onto the
Stuffit Expander icon.  Expander will decompress the file(s) from the archive into
a new folder in the same location as the original compressed/encoded file.  If the
file is both compressed and encoded (.sit.bin), Expander will first decode the 
MacBinary, creating a .sit file, then it will unpack the contents of the .sit.

When you run across a .sea file, that's a .sit file in self-extracting format. 
It has the same limitations as other Mac files in terms of needing to be encoded
to transfer it thru a non-Mac system, so you'll likely see it as a .sea.bin or
.sea.hqx file on the internet.   Once it is decoded, you can just double-click
on it to run the extraction process.

It is also possible to decode or decompress Mac files on your Windows system.  At
www.aladdinsys.com, you'll find a tool called SITEX10.EXE; this is the installer
for the Windows version of Stuffit Expander.  If you unpack a Mac archive on a
Windows system, and any of the files in that archive had a resource fork, the
Windows version of Stuffit Expander simply discards the resource part of the file
and preserves the data part.  For many files, such as JPEG images or most word
processing documents, there is no harm in this.  For other types of files, much
of the important information was in the resource fork, and the file will be 
useless on the PC (and useless when transferred to the Mac without its resource
fork).  This is especially true of Mac applications, including .sea files.