Theos-Talk Archives (August 1993 Message tl00041)

Hi Everyone.

This msg is about things having to do with the nuts and bolts
of the study group.

First, John:

I seem to be getting mail in my new system. For the time being I'll stay
with CompuServe. When I'm comfortable with my new arragement, then I'll
remove my CompuServe address from the list.

Also, if anyone would like to comment, is the formatting of this msg ok?
I'm writing this msg using the DOS EDIT.COM program.

To everyone,
It looks like I have a seven dollar a month way to talk on the list.
If you want more info, ask!

Next, To people in the list who:
1. use Windows and,
2. have a compuserve account

I think we can send files back and forth to each other now.

Today I found a program in the Windows shareware forum on Compuserve.
This program is called WINCODE and it is a *freeware* Windows program
that allows one to convert from ASCII to binary format and back again.

What this means is that, if you have this program, you can convert an
executable file (*.exe, *.com, *.zip, ect, any binary file) to an ASCII
text file. You can then send this ASCII text file as an e-mail
message to everyone on the list.

Once you recieve the ASCII text file, you can use WINCODE to convert it
back to a fully functional executable file.

Apparently this is a major way files get transfered on internet.

The need for compuserve access is that you have to go into compuserve
and download the file WINCODE.  You can find this file on compuserve by:

1. go into the Windows Shareware forum
2. Do a library search using the key word "internet"
3. Alternatively, you could search for the file WNCODE.ZIP.

The file you want is called WNCODE.ZIP (its only 62kB and takes less
than 5 min to download) and this zip archive contains the program
WINCODE.

What I'd like to do is try to send the theosophy help file to members
who want a copy in this fashion.

If anyone wants to take me up on this offer, go and download the
program WNCODE.ZIP from Compuserve. Alternatively, if you do not have
Compuserve, I can mail a copy of the program in regular mail if you
give me your address and preferred disk size. However, and this is
important: YOU NEED WINDOWS TO USE WINCODE.

Also, I suspect John or Mike may know of a DOS based program that can
do the same conversion.

With this method we can send EXE, GIF, HLP, ZIP files to each other
as e-mail messages.  Its a bit of a roundabout way to send files,
but it will work and we could potentially send files to each other very
cheaply, which is good!

So, if anyone is interested in this, let me know and we will take it
from there.

Best to all,