If you have an Apple II and are trying to download software for it, you most likely will be using a more modern intermediate computer such as a PC or a Mac. You would download the files onto the modern machine and then transfer them to the Apple II. For purposes of getting software onto the Apple II, I highly recommend using ADTPro.
You will have probably run into several different file extensions.
Two file extensions will have to be dealt with on the modern machine .zip and .gz. These two formats contain files in a compressed state, saving disk space and bandwith when moving them around.
The .gz files contain one compressed file. The file it contains is quite often a .tar file which is an archive file containing one or more files. After opening the .gz file and extracting the .tar file you will need to open and extract the file or files in the .tar file. Files with these extensions usually come from the Unix/Linux systems.
PKZIP and its successors, create .zip files. They combine the purpose of both the .tar file and the .gz file into one step or .zip file. PKZIP was created for the MS-DOS systems and moved on into windows.
The point here is, in order to use these files, you need to open them and extract the contents, which you will need to transfer to the Apple II.
Once you have opened and extracted the contents of your downloaded file, you will have to check for more file extensions. If they have .2mg, .dsk or .do file extensions they are diskette image files ready to transfer to the Apple II using ADTPro.
If you are ready to transfer files using ADTPro and have never done, it refer to the ADTPro website for directions. They have a very complete set of instructions for the current version of ADTPro.
There are several more file extensions, I will cover in detail in a later posting. Some of the other extensions being .shk, .bqy and .bxy
ADTPro is a great program, I have an older pc (One with a DB-9 Serial port) hooked up to my network for getting Apple archive files off the WWW and its hooked to an Enhanced //e via a null modem cable to a Super Serial Card in said //e.
Its a great way to play the old Apple games on my //e as many of my original 5-1/4″ are crumbling to dust due to age.
It’s fun to tell friends and co-workers that I play games like Zaxxon, Zork, Choplifter, Joust on a 31 year old computer with 64K of memory…
🙂
You will find that there is a bewildering array of encodings and compression formats for Apple II files. I’m working on a system called Format Converter for Mac GUI Vault that will convert the files into any file type and make it more convenient for use with emulators, or sending to a real Apple II.