This web page is dlfrom2g.htm.  Created March 28, 1998 A.D.  Last modified March 28, 1998 A.D. Please inform me of any invalid links that I may fix them!  Hopefully if there's an invalid link, it is due to a new version coming out.

Note: There may be quite a few graphics loaded due to parts of this page which you may not even be viewing.  You may with to discontinue download of this page if it takes to long and just individually load the graphics you're interested in.

Note: This is not necessarily meant to be a complete archival system, and there may be software which could go on this page but which I did not put on this page.  This page is designed primarily for my own use, so I'm not too worried about any complaints viewers may have about less than total completeness.

Compressors, Archivers, and the like.

Operating Systems and related software.

Patches, etc. for Windows (95)

Assembly Mega-Demos

Free Games

Data Viewers/Manipulators (Viewers, Editors, Converters for graphics/sound/text/bytes/etc.)

Miscellaneous Programs

Compression Software

To decompress software, you need to have a decompressor that supports whatever file you're trying to decompress.  Find the section on this page on how to compress the file for an uncompressor of that kind of file.

Compressed files are generally identified by their filename extention.  Extentions supported on this page are: Zip, Exe (Compressed Executables), Arc, J, gz,  LZH, Pak, Rar, tartgz, UC2, Zoo

Zip (Latest versions for Info-Zip software: Zip 2.2, UnZip 5.32)
To compress software, I recommend Info-Zip or WiZ.  Based on the successful PKZip by PKWare, Info-Zip can archive and compress data.  Unlike PKWare's products, though, Info-Zip is *FREE*.  With Source code!  Many people use WinZip, another alternative I do not recommend.  I downloaded WinZip 6.1 and clicked on Help, About, Acknowledgements, and read: "WinZip incorporates compression code by the Info-ZIP group, which is used with their permission."  Basically, WinZip took the code from Info-Zip, added a couple of features (such as shelling out and running Arj), and wants $29 registration fee for it's interface.
If you want legal, free Zip support I recommend downloading a command line version of Info-Zip, or WiZ.  WiZ is basically the same thing as WinZip: A graphical interface for Info-Zip.  Except that WiZ is free.
Info-Zip, in addition to being free even for commercial use, has many different command-line versions available, including DOS, Win32, OS/2, Linux, and more.
Downloads:

(Related product: : Use Zip-like technology in your (commercial) programs, free)
(Related product: gzip: GNU zip)

Compressed Executables
There are a few products out there which will compress executables files.  These compressors will compress an executable, and create an executable compressed file.  When this executable file is executed, it will uncompress itself, and then the uncompressed data will be executed.  These products tend to work very well.  Here's a small list and summary of each:

LZExe (latest version found: lzexe91: Version 0.91)
LZExe compresses executable files, as is free for use.  It hasn't been updated in a very long time, however. My guess is that it's been discontinued a long time ago.  There's also UnLZExe version 0.8.
LGLZ (latest version found: lglz104: Version 1.04)
LGLZ seems to be similar to LZExe, but claims its better.  This can also be freely used, although a donation is requested.
Diet (latest version found: Diet145F: v.1.4.5F)
Diet is similar to the above files, but it can also compress data files if you keep the original executable.  It does this by acting as a TSR.  My read on this: Cheap Stacker clone, which doesn't require a seperate drive letter: Compressed and uncompressed files could be in the same directory.  Free for personal use.  A license is required for commercial use, but unfortunately the document doesn't say how much the license cost.
PKLite (latest version found: PKLtS201: Shareware version 2.01)
PKLite can compress not only DOS files but Windows files as well. It appears (PKLite -l) that PKLite, unlike PKZip, does allow for free personal use.
UCExe
UCExe, like LZExe, compresses executables in a format that they are still executable.  Unlike LZExe or PKLite, UCExe is not a stand alone product, but is an executable packed with another product: UltraCompressor II revision 3 PRO.  UCExe is shareware and is part of the UC2 shareware package: When you register UC2 you register UCExe.

Arc (Latest version: PK361: version 3.61 and ARC602: version 6.02)
PKWare, the same people who made PKZip, released a program that packed files, called PKPAK, into archives, called *.ARC.  In comparision to PKPak, their new software was so fast they called it PKZip. According to the documentation from LHArc v1.13c source code, System Enhancement Associates sued PKWare for infringing on the rights of their Arc program, Arc. There's also ArcA(dd) and ArcE(xtract) by Wayne Chin and Vernon D. Buerg.

Arj (Latest version: Arj260: Version 2.60)
Many years ago, Arj gave PKZip a real run for the money at becoming the major standard of compressors.  It had pretty much the same options as Rar (although not the full-screen support), and far superior compression to PKZip 1.1.  Arj was also free for personal use, unlike the shareware PKZip.  Probably the thing that kept PKZip in the lead is that the Zip file format was public domain and thus quite portable by 3rd parties; the Arj file format was not.  Arj's author is now sponsoring two compression programs: Arj and Jar.

gz (GNU zip) (gzip) (Latest version: gzip 1.2.4)
If you run into a *.gz file, you have GNU Zip (more commonly referred to as gzip) to thank for that.  Compressing with gzip is not recommended, as it can only compress one file at a time.  You can download the DOS version, the source code, and probably other versions from the Info-Zip directories.  For other versions, check out http://www.gzip.org.

J (Latest version: Jar102: Version 1.02)
Jar is made by the author of Arj and boasts increased compression comparing it closer to Rar 2.02 than Zip 2.x.  However, it has less options than what Arj does.  (This information comes from the Arj Software home page.)

LZH (Latest Version: LHA255E: version 2.55 English, 2.67 patch)
LZH files are handled by LHA, an old program based on the older LHArc.  Source code for LHArc is available in ZOO format.  Source code for LHA 2.11 is also available, as well as patches to versions later than 2.55, Windows software, and more by visiting http://www.bekkoame.or.jp/~h_ozawa.

Pak (Latest Version: PAK 2.51)
NoGate Consulting released Pak not long after PKPak's 3.61 was released (according to copyright dates).  By the way, PKPak handles *.ARC files and are incompatible with data files made with PAK. Want more confusion?  Pak has a /ZS option which will create a file using the .ZIP extention which only Pak, not PKZip or Info-Zip, can recognize.

Rar (Latest Version: Rar202: Version 2.02)
Rar has become a bit popular among a select few.  Rar boasts greater compression than other compressors including Info-Zip.  Additionally, it has a whole slew of options, like Arj.  Furthermore, Rar for DOS has a full screen display (disable-able with -std).  There's versions for DOS, Windows, Linux, and more.  Unfortunately, Rar is shareware requiring expensive registration, and does not release source code so it can't be ported by anyone but the author.
Included in Rar 2.02 is an UnRar.Exe, which the Rar_FAQ.Txt says is free with source, although I didn't see the source anywhere. Latest source code I could find (and it wasn't in the archive) was for UnRar version 1.05 (for DOS), which won't Unrar Rar's made with Rar version 2.0 (not all of them anyway).
The home site had multiple links to all ports last time I checked.

Tar (Latest version: Unknown.  Go use Tar4DOS)
Tar is not a compressor, but rather an archiver.  However, it still has files in its own format similar to a comopressor, and so gets mentioined here.  There's a number of files in ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/arcers which look like they'll do the trick.  Seems to me I've used tar4dos.zip.
tar4dos.zip, tar.zip, tar320g.zip, extar10.zip, ltarv3.zip, detar11.zip, pdtar.zip

tgz (Latest Version: See gzip and tar)
tgz is a three letter abbreviation (probably invented for MS-DOS systems) for tar.gz, a combination of an archiving format (tar) with a compressing format (gzip). So, first un-gzip the file in question to product a *.tar file, and then untar it.  By the way, making these is not advised.  Just use Zip.  Tar for many operating systems will have a file untarred and ungzipped if given the right paramters.

UC2 (Latest version: UC2Pro: Version Uc2R3P)
UltraComrpessor II revision 3 PRO is quite slow to compress, but extremely, excessively fast to uncompress.  It's also fairly tight (smaller than Zip).  There's a 30 day trial period.  After that, non-commercial use is continued to be allowed.  It also includes UCExe.  Every version of UltraCompressor 2 and UltraCompressor 2 Pro which I have seen has always had the downloadable archive called uc2pro.exe.  

Zoo (Latest version: ZOO210: version 2.10)
Zoo was, well, popular at one time, I guess. It was before I knew anything about compression. If you want to try out this neat-sounding-name of a compressor (or managed to get stuck with a .ZOO file) then download ZOO210.Exe.

Operating Systems

Free update to version MS-DOS 6.22 for all users of MS-DOS 6.0, 6.2, and 6.21, stored inside a registered version of PKZip's self-extracting archives.

Files from older versions of MS-DOS removed from 6.22, of possible interest to some MS-DOS 6.22 users

DR-DOS is now made free for non-commercial use, available for download from Caldera. The kernel's source code is even available for download.

Windows Related Files

These two files are required by some Windows programs to run under Windows 3.x, and should not be required by Windows 95 users:
WinG[ame] makes Windows 3.x a bit more suitable for playing native games in, although still not good.
Win32s, a subset of 32 bit extensions for Windows 3.1.

DOSWinKey can disable the special Windows 95 keys on Windows 95 keyboards inside DOS sessions.  This file has become a part of the collection of tools known as the Kernel Toys.

Microsoft's Power Toys for Windows 95 offer customization options, a utility to change video modes on the fly, and more.  A list of these tools is available.

Microsoft PC Speaker Driver for Windows plays *.WAV type output from a PC Speaker, but is not a MIDI device.  Contrary to popular belief, this software works with both Windows 3.x and Windows 95.

Assembly MegaDemos
Assembly MegaDemos are basically movies on your computer, but instead of being stored frame by frame and playing raw WAV-like sound, like what the AVI and MOV formats do, the graphics are mathematically calculated and the music often stored in a format like S3M (which was custom-made by MegaDemo programmers).

The Hornet Archive has a database of  many MegaDemos, as well as a search engine.

Many people say that Future Crew's MegaDemo Second Reality is the best.  It won the Assembly '93 international demo contest.
Second Reality Disk 1/2 from www.gravis.com
Second Reality Disk 2/2 from www.gravis.com
Second Reality software search results from the Hornet Archive (The program in one zip file, an update file, and S3M's of the music)

OTM's Textro is a cool MegaDemo in text mode!  It also has partial source available.
HeartQuake, by Iguana, is yet another demo I like.  So is Verses by ElectroMotive Force.  HeartQuake, though, has some sort of sources, and some more sources, and the music player (not integrated) all available in seperate downloads.

Free Games

In case you didn't know, there are a lot of games available for IBM PC's.  A good portion of this is commercial software which is not legally allowed to be distributed via the internet.  Another large portion is shareware.  Both of those categories have a large amount of games, many of which are of high quality.  However, they also require money.

Listed below are free games which you can legally download, and which the author does not legally bind you to pay any money if you like the game and want to play it six months from now.

Follow one of these links to learn more about the individual software in question: Galactix (1.4 and 1.5), Pizza Worm 2.1g, Zorlim's Arcade Volleyball 0.8, ...

Galactix (Cygnus Software: Discontinued: Versions 1.4 and 1.5)

Galactix is a space-invaders type of game, except much faster pace.  Sometimes I can whip through a round in under 5 seconds, just using my standard shot.  All versions up to and including 1.4 have labeled themselves as being shareware versions.  Version 1.5 labels itself as being "Free shareware", and all contact information has been removed, so it appears that Cygnus Software no longer wants registration.

Version 1.4 can be downloaded from www.a2znet.com.  The archive there has some installation problems, though: The LZH's in the installation archive have been turned into Zip's!  Just unzip the contents of the two zip's into the same directory as where you install the rest of the files.
Version 1.5 can be downloaded from www.mabb.com.  Version 1.5 has some redone graphics, and no longer gives out contact information for Cygnus Software.

As you can see from the screen shot from the older version, you can get yourself quite an arsenal of firepower.  You also have a claw which you can extend to grab powerups, such as the bomb in the above picture (The letter B).  The enemies on both screen shots are the same types of enemies: The differences of graphics show the difference in versions.

Requirements for Galactix: 286 with VGA/MCGA video support.  Runs well on higher end systems.

Pizza Worm (by Zorlim.  Discontinued: Versions 1.2 and 2.1g)

Pizza Worm: 212K of multiplayer fun.  The player is a worm which eats more and more pizza, growing with every pizza you eat.  Of course, if you bonk your head into the wall or even your own body , you will be deemed an unfit navigator of the worm and the round will cease.  There are two versions of Pizza Worm available straight from Zorlim's page: Version 1.2 and version 2.1g.  (There's also a java version of the game, but the java version is incredibly unfinished to the point that it really doesn't qualify as being the same game).  Version 1.2 works on 286's and has a single player mode: Version 2.1g requires a 386 or higher and boasts a multiplayer mode.

(Picture not yet made)
Version 1.2 single player Version 2.1g Mutliplayer

Zorlim's Arcade Volleyball (Discontinued: Version 0.8)

Zorlim's Arcade Volleyball requires two players and, in my opinion, isn't that excessively wonderful of a game, but I put Pizza Worm here, so I figured I'd finish off the collection of Zorlim games.  Object is simply to bop a ball over the 'net (spikes, dives, bumps, etc. aren't implimented).  Source code is available (for ZAV as well as all Zorlim releases except for Pizza Worm)!  The last version developed was version 0.8.

Note: The following is a list of games which work well with less than VGA graphics.

Double Link is a shareware Dr. Mario clone. The old version is available from many sites on the internet. There's an updated version as well.

Data Manipulators

Hex version 5.1: Loads up a binary file like a word processor (uses temporary files if necessary), and saves the file later. This editor supports inserting/deleting bytes, search and replace, and allows the edited file to be accessed when it's open. It also has a handy Binary/Hex/Decimal converter. Version 5.1 is the last version I found that didn't demand financial payment for the full version. The author has since discontinued Hex and now markets HexTool, the not-free successor to Hex.

Misc which I haven't found/made a spot for yet:

Microsoft's Power Toys for Internet Explorer 4.0 adds some little niceties to your web browsing experience.