[r-t] archives & zipping

[Robin Woolley]

Hi All,

It seems I'm never going to get a simple answer to my question!

Some history. By the way, this is the way I like doing things and so, 
according to the ideas of the moment, I must be respected for wishing to 
do it this way.

Up until about the end of 2007, I was able to click on the 'downloadable 
version' link of the 'ringing-theory Archives' and the text would open 
in my browser. There was no farting about 'downloading' and 'unzipping' 
of any sort, it was just there, as text, on the browser window. (I may 
have been using Netscape at the time). Having downloaded and saved the 
month's archive, I could delete the appropriate e-mails.

2008 was a 'slack time' for the list and so I didn't have to download 
any archives for some time. After about a year or so, when I tried the 
same procedure, it didn't work - I got the message about my system not 
knowing what to do with it. I remember mentioning that it had changed to 
John Camp at the SSY Doubleday-Crofts 200 dinner at the end of 2009.

I am coming to the conclusion that the answer to this change will be 
forever unknown in detail and no amount of technobabble will help.

For what it's worth, I see my oldest zip-file is over 20 years old. I 
don't suppose the basic concept of compression has changed in that time. 
We needed it in those days when we had 5-inch disks with 360k storage.

I guess whoever gzips the file does too much directory recursion. Useful 
for backing up, etc, lots of files but a little inappropriate for one 
file! However, this does not explain the original change.

There will be those who say I've mis-remembered all this. If the 
situation was not as I described, I would not have chosen to do it that 
way. I'd most likely have copied the original e-mails to a text file. I 
would not have the original summary text files (which I have) but the 
gzip versions. I then edited these text files as a Word document to 
remove the items I'm not interested in.

Does anyone else use the zipped archives?

Best wishes
Robin