TYPESQ - print out a squeezed file

[larsbrinkhoff]

SYS2; TS TYPESQ
AR7: GZ; TYPESQ MID1 (not sure if source is available, will have to search for it)

[larsbrinkhoff]

Are those the files that end in IX?

[larsbrinkhoff]

There are no archive files in GZ or GRUPP.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Also SYS2; TS USQ, assembled from AR4: GZ; USQ 61.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Found it. MC: SRA; AR3 GZ.MID

[larsbrinkhoff]

Neither .INFO.; ITS UUOSIX or AI: USERS3; STOCOM USQ20 are accepted by TS TYEPSQ or TS USQ:
This file was not SQ'ed or CRAM'ed!

[larsbrinkhoff]

AR7: GZ; TYPESQ MID1 just .insrts USQ.MID. There's a USQ MID42 in the archive. But that file looks like a TOPS-20 program. Indeed that makes sense since the archive is named GZ; AR7 TWENEX.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Upon revisiting SRA; AR3 GZ.MID, I see that USQ 61 seems to have the same capability as USQ MID42 to be built as two different programs depending on a flag. So it looks like we had the source code all along.

[larsbrinkhoff]

USQ checks the first letter of its JNAME. If it's T, it'll go into TYPESQ mode. So just make a link.

[larsbrinkhoff]

The question is how to make squeezed or crammed files?

Do we have any samples?

[larsbrinkhoff]

Hello @gzacharias,

I have found two ITS programs called USQ and TYPESQ, which I believe you wrote. I haven't found any programs to write compressed files. Do you know if there were any in ITS?

Thanks!

[atsampson]

This is a CP/M compression format. About half the references to ITS in the 1981-1991 UTZoo news archive are about the CP/M software archive in MC: CPM;, which later moved to SIMTEL. From news:885@brl-smoke.ARPA:

On ITS machines, file transfer using the Christensen protocol can be done using MMODEM (type :MMODEM for instructions), or LMODEM. Documentation for LMODEM is in file .INFO.;LMODEM HELP. Other useful ITS utilities include:

TYPE8 - types an ASCII file stored in ITS binary format.
TYPESQ - types an ITS binary format "squeezed" file (see the first paragraph under FILE TYPES).
USQ - creates an unsqueezed version of a squeezed file.
HEXIFY - creates an Intel hex format file from an ITS binary format COM file.
COMIFY - creates a COM file from an Intel hex file.
CRC - computes the Cyclic Redundancy Check value for a file, using the same algorithm that is used by the CP/M program CRCK.

Brief instructions for any of these utilities except LMODEM can be obtained by typing ":utility_name" (for example, :CRC).

I can't see any references to an ITS SQ, but there was a TOPS-20 version by Frank Wancho that was compiled with KCC, still available in the Minix distfiles. From news:7114@brl-tgr.ARPA:

Yet another version of a TOPS-20 SQ and USQ is now available, based on the "portable" C version [...] These programs are meant to be compiled with the "MIT C" compiler. [...]

USQ is different from GZ's USQ in that it will handle any arbitrarily large file that SQ can produce; it assumes the original file was an ASCII text file; it is more than three times slower. It also has the TYPESQ functionality by the use of the -count option for previewing without actually unsqueezing.

[atsampson]

news:3144@sri-arpa.UUCP from GZ says the Twenex source for USQ and TYPESQ is in AR91:CPM;.

[atsampson]

I had a search through the Walnut Creek CP/M CD-ROM - there are copious references to ITS and how the tools above were used in the INFO-CPM mail archives there, and a few CP/M programs for use with ITS (e.g. UNTIP which removes ITS control codes from text, and MODEM76 which has suggested patches for ITS users).

[larsbrinkhoff]

Does it say to use MATH; KERMIT to transfer files?

[atsampson]

No mentions of using Kermit against ITS that I can see. If the ITS Kermit was written in 1988, that's not surprising because the CP/M archive had moved to Simtel20 by then.

There's a 1982 announcement of TOPS-20/Z80 Kermit that refers to it as "the 'KL10 Error-Free Reciprocol Microcomputer Interchange over TTY-Lines' Protocol", with source and documentation in AR67:CPM; and AR68:CPM;.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Here are sample files to verify USQ and TYPESQ:
http://www.classiccmp.org/cpmarchives/cpm/mirrors/oak.oakland.edu/pub/cpm/squsq/

Apparently, the convention is that squeezed files have the middle letter of the file extension replaced with Q.

[larsbrinkhoff]

USQ was already added in #356.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Trying to FTP a file using TENEX mode. The data doesn't seem to come through. Maybe my firewall rules for FTP are off.

@atsampson, you have FTP'ed files to ITS, right? Did you do anything in particular to make it work?

[larsbrinkhoff]

Verified with a squeezed file.

I made a Unix tool to convert an 8-bit file to the "TENEX" format. (Four left-aligned octets and four zero bits to a word.)

[atsampson]

you have FTP'ed files to ITS, right? Did you do anything in particular to make it work?

FTP in active mode, and add -A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 21 -j CT --helper ftp to my local firewall configuration so the data connection is allowed back in. Binary mode FTP uses files in the format dis10 calls "bin" and wfconv calls "h".

[larsbrinkhoff]

Thanks, I don't have that in my iptables script. I was hoping conntrack would do the job.

We should probably have a ready-made script checked in. Here's mine. I based it on one by Björn.
https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/its.pdp10.se/blob/master/its/iptables.sh