I need technical help with the LSD disk collection.

[Neville]

For easier reference, I have been trying to convert some of the doc files from these disks to ASCII or DOC formats (I am a Windows user).

I had some trouble with the first disks, but I managed to learn that they were stored using PowerPacker and after that everything went fine as silk. Problem is newer disks seem to use a different method of compression and I have no clues at all about it. Right now I am stuck with LO46. As seen from Directory Opus, the files have different extensions, from none to DOC, KEYS, etc. Any attempt to edit them through this program results in the editor displaying rubbish.

I know this is not a common question, but if you happen to know anything about the matter, I would appreciate some help. In fact, I only need to know what program was used to crunch / decrunch those files.

[§ane]

There is a small program called "rtdd" present on LSD Docs disks 44, 45 and 46. Once the program is resident in memory, simply copying a compressed file will result in an uncompressed destination file.

[Neville]

Looks like rtdd is buggy (or AIAB). I have done what you say, Sane, but many text files appear only partially. That is, they stop after a few pages. Looks that this happens mainly if you copy files through Directory Opus. I have tried it as well through an Amiga DOS Shell with better results, but some files still appear
cliped.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Try this file

ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/util/pack/xfdmaster.lha

I already tested it on that same LSD Docs disk and everything unpacked with no probs whatsoever. Here's the rundown on xfd, a tool that should be a part of you AmigaOS anyhow:

Short: Rel1.36 Decrunch packed files (exe/data)
Author: Georg Hoermann, Dirk Stoecker
Uploader: stoecker@epost.de (Dirk Stoecker)
Version: 1.36 / 39.13
Type: util/pack

The XFD system is for single file decrunching. It can be compared to
XAD system, which is for file extraction from archives! They do
different work, but are used together often.

This software package allows you to decrunch almost every packed file
known on the Amiga. It consists of the xfdmaster.library as the brain
and a couple of programs that offer certain functions to the user.

The xfdmaster.library is a standard Amiga shared, runtime library. It
works with Kickstart V33+ and offers applications the possibility to
directly support any crunched files.

Other than the predecessor decrunch.library, the xfdmaster.library has
a more flexible interface, offers the possibility to decrunch already
loaded program segments, supports external decrunchers, is able to
unlink 4EB9/4EF9- and text-linked files and can scan for crunched data
in any memory area.

[Neville]

Great! I finally got everything OK. Thanks to all the people who have answered to my questions here.