REFLECTIONS OF A MODEMJUNKIE
                               by
                        Leonard Grossman

     Well, we've all survived the great PKZIP flap of 1993. Its
depressing (or compressing, if your prefer).  PKZ204c was
probably one the second or third most widely distributed beta
version in history (even if Phil Katz didn't intend it that way). 
I haven't figured out why they went from 204c to e to g.  I
wonder what interesting features were discovered in d and f. 
Anyway, those of us with 286 machines had no problems with any of
them and actually, PKWARE was very responsive in getting out the
bugfixes.

If this story has any lesson, it was a great demonstration of the
effectiveness of bbs's and shareware not only as a distribution
method but as an exchange of information.  Within hours of the
initial distribution, reports of purported bugs came in to the
PKWARE Forum on Compuserve and to their conference on the RIME
network and elsewhere. PKWARE received thousands of messages in a
very short time.  News was relayed quickly so no one needed to be
in the dark for long (although my $89.50 Compuserve bill for
January has put me in the dog house for awhile).

The two bugfixes were distributed quickly and efficiently through
the medium of the modem and everyone should be set up with
PKZ204g by now.  For the conservative among us, I recommend
sticking with version 110 for zipping files but using the version
204g of PKUNZIP for unzipping files.  That way you will be
universally compatible.  As for me, I have been using 204g for
both functions without problems on in my Qwkmail reader (SLMR) on
boards that accept the new standard.  

The only real problem I have encountered is that Magellan and
other programs that were able to read and manipulate zipped files
have not been upgraded to handle the new standard.  While I
expect some of the other programs to upgrade quickly, Lotus has
made it clear it has no intention of doing so, demonstrating
their contempt for their customers and further degrading one of
the greatest DOS shells ever created. (Part of that C'serve bill
was for time on the Lotus Forum, trying to encourage an upgrade.
Since I got the January bill, I only check in weekly.  Its
incredible to see the amount of interest in an upgrade and Lotus'
stony silence.)

If there is any benefit to the change in the ZIP standard, aside
from its increased speed and compression (and all the fancy new
features, like disk spanning,  that I'll never use) its that the
changeover forced me to take a closer look at things I once took
for granted.  Errors I made in path statements switching over
taught me more about my system than I wanted to know.  But I'm a
better person for it.

Copyright 1993 Leonard Grossman