I struggled mightily to find good step by step directions on how to do this. I rummaged through site after site, lengthy detailed explanations, conversion directions, etc. But every place I looked (and this was days of hunting, reading, trying) refused to give up the secrets.
There was lots of mention of nulib and even nulib2--and a version on the Macintosh. One came with the OS XII emulator in its miscellaneous folder. But how to use it? Double-clicking launched a Terminal window and provided a list of commands-- but then what? There is a real need for a front end GUI for this folks!
In any event, after much trial and error, here's what I figured out. It's a set of step by step directions on how to expand an .shk or .sdk file on a Macintosh using nulib2. I've even tested the directions as a novice would reading them for the first time. They work! But if you find a glitch or an error please post a suggestion or correction!
To keep this post a reasonable length, I'll put the directions in the next message!
Put the file you wish to convert into its own folder
then
Launch Terminal
type cd (for change directory)
then drag the file you wish to change into the Terminal window- you can just click and drag it to any visible part of the Terminal window (the mouse pointer will include a green + sign indicating that it is copying the path)
-after you do that, you'll have to click on the Terminal window to bring it to the front
backspace deleting the name of the file and also delete the / mark just before the file name
then press return
That will make the focus of the later expansion the folder (otherwise you could end up with a dozen+ files in another window and it's a nuisance cleaning up
then drag the nulib2-bin file into the Terminal window (it comes with OSXII emulator in its Misc folder)
type -x (for extract, and you do need to put the dash in as well as the x)
make sure there's a space after the x
then drag the file you wish to unshrink into the Terminal window (it will likely put a long path name as well)
again click on the Terminal window to bring it to the fore
press return
Voila! nulib will have unshrunk the file and reported that it was expanded
The unshrunk files will be in the folder you first created!
If you type -v instead of -x (-v for view), it will list what's inside of the shrunk archive.
Hope this helps someone! I know I could have used it when I first started down this road.
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Here's an example of that on my mac--I've added blank lines between commands-- Terminal isn't very pretty in its formatting. and even put down what happens after each step-- the actual number of lines inside the Terminal are only a couple.
Step 1 result after typing cd and dropping the wordperfect.sdk file onto the Terminal window
paul-ibook-g4:~ Paul$ cd /Users/Paul/Desktop/WordPerfectGS_3DiskSet\ Folder/WORDPERFECT.SDK
Then you have to backspace, deleting the name of the sdk file through the / so it looks like this (your line will be different depending on where you've stashed the shk or sdk file and what you've name your Mac)
paul-ibook-g4:~ Paul$ cd /Users/Paul/Desktop/WordPerfectGS_3DiskSet\ Folder
Then press return--directory is switched. No notification from Terminal
Then drop the nulib2-bin file into the window and type -x (and a space) it'll look like this
paul-ibook-g4:~/Desktop/WordPerfectGS_3DiskSet Folder Paul$ /Applications/Games/Apple\ II\ emulators/OSXII\ 0.9\ Folder/Misc/nulib2-bin -x
Then drop the wordperfect.sdk file into the Terminal window
paul-ibook-g4:~/Desktop/WordPerfectGS_3DiskSet Folder Paul$ /Applications/Games/Apple\ II\ emulators/OSXII\ 0.9\ Folder/Misc/nulib2-bin -x /Users/Paul/Desktop/WordPerfectGS_3DiskSet\ Folder/WORDPERFECT.SDK
Then click on the Terminal window (to bring it to the front) and press return. Terminal responds with
DONE expanding WORDPERFECT
paul-ibook-g4:~/Desktop/WordPerfectGS_3DiskSet Folder Paul$
If you look at another one of my threads, you'll see that sometimes you end up something that can't be used. I still haven't been to figure out how to get the expanded WordPerfect file from WordPerfect2e2c.shk to work or Beaglewrite (which expanded into dozens of program files, including an 8 meg dictionary!).
But at least it expands the shrunk files. Of course, come to think of it, I haven't yet gotten anything usable out of this process!
Oh, well, as Sir Edmund Hilary said when asked why he decided to climb Mount Everest, "Because it's there!"
Its not on a mac but CiderPress by faddensoft.com is a superb utility..
I'm On a Mac and I use Apple II and Apple IIgs Emulators on the mac
I did what you said, which worked perfectly by the way, but Is there anyway I can convert the unshrunk files and directories into Disk Image or 2mg Files useable on my emulators?
Please Let me Know As soon as Possible.
Thanks
One possibility is to find a copy of a program for the Mac, that runs under the Classic environment, called ShrinkII which will expand the sdk file into a usable disk image that most Apple II emulators will run.
Another, and a little longer and more convoluted, is if you have an Apple IIGS emulator then use ADFS, which you can find here:
http://www.lazilong.com/apple_II/adfs/
to transfer the sdk or shk file to your GS hard drive image and then boot your GS emulator and run GS Shrinkit to open the file in the emulator and transfer it to a disk image.
Dean