New at the Archive in the 8bit/New section.

Program name: Mule (com & exe)
Author: Rick Cortese
Fee: none set by author

     Have you ever wanted to transfer a file from your 1050 to your IBM, or 
how about the other way?  If you've read the Internet news for any length of 
time you already know about such programs as "Sparta Read" and "Util".  
You've also most likely heard about the "Sio2PC" interface that allows you
to save files to your IBM hard drive in disk image format.  Sparta Read and 
Util both require you to have double density drives.  Sparta Read will work
on any IBM drive as the disk must first be formated double density under 
SpartaDos on your 1050.  Util seems to only work when the disk if formated
on an IBM 360K drive and read or written to from a double density 1050.

     Ah but what if you don't have a double density drive and you don't want
to save in disk image format?  Yes, there is always the Null modem cable but
what if your IBM is not near your Atari?  This is where Mule comes in.  Mule
is a set of programs, one for your Atari (Mule.com) and one for your IBM 
(Mule.exe), that allow you to transfer a file between any IBM and any standard
1050 disk drive.  That's right, double density is no longer required.

     How it works, you format a double density disk (do not use high density)
on the your IBM, be sure to format the disk for 180k (read your IBM Dos manual
of use one of the many 3rd party formatters).  Next you copy the file you want 
to transfer to a second disk (Mule will only read and write to D1:), select
read from the menu and wait until told to insert the Mule disk.  It works much
the same on the Atari side, format the Mule disk, copy from the default drive
and write to the Mule disk.  Once written, you take the disk to your other
machine, load the correct version of Mule for the machine you'll be using and
select read from the menu.  After the file is read, you'll be prompted to insert
a default disk to write to.  Mule has been tested on text, binary and archive
files and all files survived the transfers.

     Okay, the drawbacks.  You can only transfer one file per disk, and the
file loses its name in the process.  Mule always writes a file named Mule.dat 
so you'll have to remember the name of the files you transfer.  The other 
drawback is that you're limited in file size, about 24k,  the author states
that there is no reason that the program could not be modified to handle
larger files (34k).  File size is limited because the complete file to be
transferred is stored in memory, there are no multiple read and writes.

     One thing to note, Mule is really just a demo to show that such a 
transfer can be done and as such the program has not really been fully
developed.  Still, it does everything it sets out to do and does it well.
If you've been trapped by not being able to transfer files from your IBM to your
Atari because of a lack of double density drives, then you'll want to give
Mule a try.

     Included with the archive are the source codes for both the Atari Mule
(written in Action!) and the IBM Mule (written in Turbo C).  Action! and 
Turbo C are required to compile modified versions of the programs.

Mike Todd
The Atari Archive Project
Louisiana