ReStuff

StuffIt is the de-facto standard for file archiving and compression on Mac OS before OS X. Most old Macintosh software is preserved in StuffIt format, but a format change in StuffIt 5 makes archives created in this version unreadable in older versions of StuffIt. Since StuffIt 3.5 is the last version that works on System 6, many archives cannot be opened on compact Macs running System 6.

ReStuff is a SaaS that automatically converts StuffIt version 4 & 5 archives to a format readable in StuffIt 3.

Upload

Current server status: Waiting for a file to be uploaded...
Archives converted: 82

How it Works

  1. A StuffIt .sit archive is uploaded
  2. A Basilisk II virtual machine is started on the server with a pre-configured Mac OS System 7.5 image
    1. The uploaded archive is opened in StuffIt Deluxe 5.5 and all files are extracted to a temporary folder, preserving data forks and other attributes
    2. StuffIt Deluxe 3.5 is opened and a new archive is created, adding all of the extracted files to the archive
    3. The new archive is copied out of the virtual machine
    4. The virtual machine is shut down
  3. The new archive is made available to download, then deleted along with the original uploaded archive
  4. The virtual machine's system image is deleted and replaced with a fresh copy

This service can only process one file at a time, but all files are put into a queue so your file will be processed in the order it was uploaded.

Privacy

Though I can't imagine anyone actually needing to convert sensitive StuffIt archives from a modern format to an archaic one as this tool does (private files preserved in old StuffIt formats can be extracted privately by modern tools on one's own computer), one should not upload sensitive files to this tool. However, files are deleted as soon as the conversion process completes and converted archives are deleted a half hour after conversion, which can only be downloaded by the user that uploaded them unless the private URL is given to someone else before the file is deleted.

Credits

This is a free service created and operated by joshua stein (@jcs). Check out my C Programming on System 6 video series and join me and others in the #cyberpals IRC channel on the freenode network.