This particular web page is not copyright.
If you have succeeded in installing and running QBasic, which we recommend you to try first, then you only need to be able to install PKUNZIP for the big number-crunchers like the Relativistic Flight Simulator, the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability and the Von Karman Vortex Street. Otherwise don't bother! Read no further!
If you don't have QBasic available, but you do have PKZIP, then read on.
OK, so you want to install PKUNZIP in unzip-and-go mode. Once you have done this, you can point to any ZIP file on this website and run it at once just like a BAS file with QBasic installed. You can take a macho pride in running the relativistic flight simulator at peak performance.
First we need to write a little batch file, which we will call UNZIP.BAT, with the contents
pkunzip %1 -o go.bat del go.bat
A copy of this batch file is available below. Download it and save it as UNZIP.BAT in the root directory of your C: drive, as C:\UNZIP.BAT. You can find instructions on how to do this wherever you see something like
which you can see at the top of this page. Note that the file UNZIP.BAT has been temporarily renamed UNZIP.TXT to conform to the Internet naming convention. Its true name is UNZIP.BAT and it is a BATch file. Click on the 'back' or 'backward' button on your web browser when you have finished with UNZIP.BAT.
You will need to install UNZIP.BAT as a 'viewer' in your web browser. If you try to download a program like RFS.ZIP without doing this, you will get a message about the MIME type
application/zip
There is no need to worry about what a MIME type is or what this computerspeak actually means. You only need to know how to plug it in to PKUNZIP.
If you have bought and installed PKZIP, then your AUTOEXEC.BAT file will probably have been modified to allow access to PKUNZIP from anywhere in the system. If this has not been done, then we suggest that you do it now. PKZIP is useful for keeping backup copies of any file in compressed form. This is an additional use which makes it worth the trouble to modify AUTOEXEC.BAT if it has not been done already.
The author is running Mosaic as a browser, which he got free with his CompuServe subscription. From Mosaic select Tools, then Options, then File Types and then New. Then type in 'application/zip' and click on OK. In the Extensions: window enter .zip (note the stop or period before the 'zip'). Position the cursor in the Program: window and select Browse. Look for UNZIP. It is presumably
C:\unzip.bat
Then click on OK. Click on OK again and you sould be back in Mosaic. You have now installed UNZIP.BAT as a viewer and associated it with 'application/zip'. You never needed to know what this 'MIME type' meant.
If you are running some other browser you will need to do something similar. This ability to install a viewer is a basic skill which is worth acquiring, so please persevere if you have difficulties. If the reported MIME type is not 'application/zip' then please report this to the author on 100425.3501@compuserve.com so that he can collect information on this topic. Any other information would be appreciated. The benefits of everyone being able to run EXE programs are obvious.
When you click on the RFS.ZIP file, it will be downloaded, and PZUNZIP will be started up automatically. Once RFS.EXE has been extracted, it will be executed at once. Press ESC to exit at any time.
Once execution is finished, you may find in an operating system like Windows 95 that you are left in a DOS box. Find 'properties' and click on it. Set auto-exit and full screen mode according to taste. Click on the X box at top right to exit. When you run another ZIP file, you will find that you never see the DOS box again.
Once a program is running, it is suggested that you exit pretty quickly with the ESC key, to make sure that your telephone is disconnected. If you know how to manipulate your dialling program, well and good, but don't run up telephone bills larger than you have to. You will see that the link to the ZIP file has changed colour to indicate its local availability. When you click on the link again, it is unzipped and run again. Maybe someone can think of a way to avoid a second unzipping, but then we are trying to keep things simple.
Another good reason to make sure your telephone is disconnected is that servicing the dialling program may slow down your computer. One thing you can try is to start up a program like RFS.ZIP in an operating system like Windows 95, and then press Ctrl-Esc. Close all other tasks including both the dialler (if necessary) and the web browser (you can indeed close a web browser such as Mosaic even though that was where you started). Then select RFS again from the task bar. You may now have a faster-running program. Try it and see.
When you click on a file like RFS.ZIP, it replaces the %1 in the batch file UNZIP.BAT. The file is then unzipped by PKUNZIP to produce two files
RFS.EXE GO.BAT
All that is in the short batch file GO.BAT is the single line
RFS.EXE
UNZIP.BAT then passes control to GO.BAT, which in turn passes control to RFS.EXE which is then run. When you exit from RFS.EXE, you may be left in a DOS box inside an operating system like Windows 95, but you should be able to work out how to reset the properties of this box to exit automatically back to your web browser, so you do not get stuck in this box the next time.
The last line in UNZIP.BAT simply deletes GO.BAT for the sake of safety, so it does not interfere with other things you may try to do.
All we are really doing is setting up a daisy-chain of pointers. Once you realise this, you should have no difficulties with installing PKUNZIP. You can of course have both QBasic and PKUNZIP installed since the MIME types do not clash. Do this, and you will have a system which gives you a choice of running short interpreted source code, or long compiled object code. As an example, you might prefer KHI2.BAS and KHI.ZIP rather than KHI2.ZIP or KHI.BAS.
An EXE file can be compiled from any language, not just QBasic. If you have some programs and were wondering what to do with them, well now you can publish them on the Internet together with instructions like this. For this reason, this particular web page is not copyright. Pinch it and re-edit it to your requirements. An acknowledgement will suffice.
If you want to save ZIP files elsewhere, for example on drive A as suggested in the page on the Virtual Internet, then you will need to temporarily delete the application/zip from the File Types. It is easy to restore afterwards. Do not of course delete UNZIP.BAT. You only have to disconnect it.