UC2 (16-bit) on Win64

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MaxX
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UC2 (16-bit) on Win64

Post by *MaxX »

UC2 is old enough to be forgotten by its creator.... TC supports UC2, even today when this packer becomes useless (16 bit software does NOT work on Win64). Once upon a time here was a proposal to replace UC2 with something more useful, e.g. 7-Zip or anything like that. But UC2 it still with us.
I really have never seen UC2 archives alive, but can believe they were (are?) popular. BTW, I don't see any sense to have UC2 today and agree to replace it with something newer (7zip, Uha, FreeArc, etc...). But that's my IMHO only.

It is interesting (for me) to try this format.
Can DosBox help me?
My config line for UC2 is:
UC2=%COMMANDER_PATH%\Uc2.exe

How can I make it work properly with TC under DosBox?
Is there any another solution?

P.S.
I can't find 32-bit UC2, only 16-bit. Did it ever exist?
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milo1012
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Post by *milo1012 »

Not to forget:
Even Christian's official link to the exe is long dead
http://ghisler.com/tools.htm#packers

I switched to TC over 15 years ago, and used a lot of packers until then, even experimental ones, but even I never heard of UC (UltraCompressor), nor did I ever use it since then.
RAR was and is quite common, LHA and ARJ were very common and widespread DOS packers, TAR is well know from the Unix world...
...but UC(2) ??

Support++ for finally removing it from the packer and configuration menu


BTW
http://encode.ru/threads/1485-UC2-sources
So we have some source code for it, released under LGPL.
If some day someone could compile a wcx plugin out of it, I think it would be an even better reason to finally drop it from the main TC packer config.

Update:
I just realized that this package linked above contains the latest official binaries, 2.37b and 3.0 :o
So no need to search for an alternative download source. And yes, it seems there never ever was a 32-bit build.
Last edited by milo1012 on 2016-06-17, 21:49 UTC, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by *hi5 »

Perhaps start a poll or a suggestion. Probably not to hard to replace and currently 9.0 is in beta so might be good time to suggest it to be replaced.
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MaxX
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Post by *MaxX »

2milo1012
May be there are some two-three users, who still use this ancient stuff?

hi5
Nice idea. I fid not find any existing polls about UC2 and started new:
http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=44475
Please, vote there.
Last edited by MaxX on 2016-06-17, 22:09 UTC, edited 1 time in total.
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milo1012
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Post by *milo1012 »

MaxX wrote:May be there are still some two-three users, who still use this ancient stuff?
Sure, might be.
It's just my opinion of course. Before high bandwidth connections were common, I shared a lot of archive formats with people, and not a single UC archive was ever amongst them. I don't think there is a decent and reliable way to work with these archives under today's systems (16-bit program under x64 Windows, you'd need some dosbox wrapper or similar). So this is probably the last nail in the coffin anyway...
Last edited by milo1012 on 2016-06-17, 22:12 UTC, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by *Hacker »

ftp://ftp.elf.stuba.sk/pub/pc/pack/
uc237b.exe
uc2pro.exe
uc2r3.exe

DOSBox works fine with them but I have no idea which one is the newest (though the copyright suggests it's uc237b.exe). It was created at around the same time as RAR and for some reason RAR prevailed and UC2 got lost in history. Its GUI even had tabs!

milo1012,
Thanks for the link! Nice to know a bit more about the history. And indeed it seems 2.37 beta is the newest (by carbon dating :D ).

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Post by *ghisler(Author) »

I have considered to make a plugin with the source, but it's a lot of work, and there isn't any benefit compared to modern packers like 7zip.
Author of Total Commander
https://www.ghisler.com
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MaxX
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Post by *MaxX »

2ghisler(Author)
What about fully-configurable external exe packers?

Somethink like here from my concept #2:
[2]
Another concept I'll try explain with text, it is great pain to draw it in MsPaint, too much diffrence.
1. WCX-plugins dropdown list is replaced with scrolllist (the same to first concept)
2. EXE packers are shown at the top of scroll list.
3. External ACE, ARJ, LHA, RAR, UC2 are shown in common dropdown list (no button)
4. External ACE, ARJ, LHA, RAR, UC2 are shown only if their path string is filled. You can easily hide any of them when path string is empty.
5. Buttons are only used for internal packers (ZIP, TAR, GZ, TGZ).
GUI for Alt+F5 can be something like this (see #2, the third screenshot).
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Post by *hi5 »

Re. 16 bit programs, there is a nifty msdos player - only 313kb - from Japan "This is MS-DOS emulator running on Win32-x64 command prompt.
16bit MS-DOS compatible commands can be executed on Win32-x64 envrionment."

http://homepage3.nifty.com/takeda-toshiya/msdos/index.html
(the zip file has all versions for various processors in 32/64* and sources)

Screenshot 64bit cmd running 16bit uc237b.exe
http://i.imgur.com/fRUCrL2.png

* list:
i86_x64\
i86_x86\
i286_x64\
i286_x86\
i386_x64\
i386_x86\
i486_x64\
i486_x86\
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Post by *Ovg »

2hi5
Wow! Thank a lot for link!
It's impossible to lead us astray for we don't care even to choose the way.
#259941, TC 11.01 x64, Windows 7 SP1 x64
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Post by *Jon Canale »

Yes, Thank You! My Quicken for Dos version 6.0 may last another 20 years!
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Re: UC2 (16-bit) on Win64

Post by *DrShark »

For anyone who will be interested to port UC2 to a 32-bit, 64-bit exe or a WCX plugin, there are LGPL sources (mostly, see "Read Me First.txt" for details) here. Even on 32-bit advantage could be proper long names support in UC2 archives (16-bit UC2 unpacker used by TC worked with DOS 8.3 names.)
hi5 wrote: 2016-06-20, 21:13 UTCRe. 16 bit programs, there is a nifty msdos player - only 313kb - from Japan "This is MS-DOS emulator running on Win32-x64 command prompt.
16bit MS-DOS compatible commands can be executed on Win32-x64 envrionment."

http://homepage3.nifty.com/takeda-toshiya/msdos/index.html
Emulator's page moved to: http://takeda-toshiya.my.coocan.jp/msdos/index.html
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Re: UC2 (16-bit) on Win64

Post by *brentved@yahoo.dk »

UC2 was wery werry werry prommising, but one problem was that it never came later than a (late ?) Beta. Some sequences of data would corupt the archive. Then i began to use Rar, faster, but not near the same compression as UC2 (in my use), but it was 20+ years ago.

So my advice is, if you have something in UC2, get it out from there.

Interesting that Total Commander still suports UC2, but it must be werry deep in the code, and difficult to change.
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Re:

Post by *brentved@yahoo.dk »

ghisler(Author) wrote: 2016-06-19, 14:05 UTC I have considered to make a plugin with the source, but it's a lot of work, and there isn't any benefit compared to modern packers like 7zip.
In case off logfiles, and slowly changing data UC2 could use last vertion, and only describe changes in the archive, FreeArc prommised this feature in future vertion. But some data corrupts the UC2 archive, it looks like there is not always complete separation between compressed data, and "archive info". I think that finding and eliminate that bug would be almost the same as developing a new compression format. (Just my thoughts)
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Re: UC2 (16-bit) on Win64

Post by *pplupo »

I've just made UC2 work on Windows 10 64-bit. I had to download tcmd755 to test it, because it's disabled in the latest version.
Is there an option to re-enable it?

The EXE is available here, in case anyone is interested: http://totalcmd.net/plugring/commandLinePackers.html
Last edited by pplupo on 2021-06-18, 17:19 UTC, edited 1 time in total.
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