2 Versions of Diskmasher (DMS), 1.11 & 1.51?

[Tenacious]

Version 1.11 is available on Aminet and I have used it occasionally for years.  It appears it will not write to disk if the archive file was compressed with version 1.51!  It appears the latest releases of BetterWB were compressed using 1.51.

I haven't yet found 1.51 available for download.  Is it proprietary?

[Lizard]

On this page: http://www.amiga-stuff.com/archivers-download.html is 1.52 for download:

http://www.amiga-stuff.com/files/archivers/DMS152a.lha

[cgutjahr]

DMS 1.11 is the last legal version, all releases after that were just unlicensed hacks from scene groups (that's why they're not on Aminet). Many DMS versions throw Enforcer hits and, as you noticed, sometimes a DMS archive can only be extracted with the exact same DMS version that was used to create it. DMS' error handling is generally a nightmare, anyway.

Stay clear of DMS, ADF is the much better and safer alternative. And you can mount ADF images without having to write them to a disk.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Stay clear of DMS

Sounds like somebody should tell that to the guy making the "BetterWB" packs.  Although I'd be happier to see a nice, proper LHA archive, personally.  

Edit: BetterWB is available as ADF:  http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm

[cgutjahr]

Edit: BetterWB is available as ADF

Yep, hence my suggestion to use that instead. Should have made that more clear, I guess

[Tenacious]

DMS 1.11 is the last legal version, all releases after that were just unlicensed hacks from scene groups (that's why they're not on Aminet). Many DMS versions throw Enforcer hits and, as you noticed, sometimes a DMS archive can only be extracted with the exact same DMS version that was used to create it. DMS' error handling is generally a nightmare, anyway.

Stay clear of DMS, ADF is the much better and safer alternative. And you can mount ADF images without having to write them to a disk.

I didn't know 1.11 was the last from the original author.  I found some docs (but not the executable) for v1.53 and it had this say:  

"PRODIGY found a bug *MADE IN V1.11*, which I didnt really think
 about when I made DMS to work with fastfile system disks..
 and this is true that the OLD dms v1.11 cannot unpack those
 disks, and therefor I have changed "NEEDED VERSION"
 to be v1.51 for unpacking FFS disks.

Maybe Gulliver, like me, uses FFS to recycle floppies.  

I've never tried ADF.  Time for something new.

[midway]

DMS is working well if you only use Amigas.
 
 Never had problems with it, not in the 80s or 90s, and not now after a 15 year amiga break.
 
 And you can always mount it to RAD: much quicker than floppies

[pVC]

DMS 1.11 is the last legal version, all releases after that were just unlicensed hacks from scene groups (that's why they're not on Aminet). Many DMS versions throw Enforcer hits and, as you noticed, sometimes a DMS archive can only be extracted with the exact same DMS version that was used to create it. DMS' error handling is generally a nightmare, anyway.

Then there are also DMSPro versions, I have something like 2.01 or so. But yeah, they give easily Enforcer hits, which are seen for example in MorphOS's debug log too. It's not a good sign ever...

Stay clear of DMS, ADF is the much better and safer alternative. And you can mount ADF images without having to write them to a disk.

What I don't like with ADFs is that they don't contain any checksum verification. DMS is nicer in that regard, because you just can run it in test mode to check the integrity. ADF:s should always be compressed somehow to get that... and that's not the case usually. And then you lose the direct mounting possibility in many cases.

Another note, that some people may not know, but you can use DMS images with UAE too. Just like the ADF images.