Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!bath63!pes
From: pes@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: RE: uudecode
Message-ID: <688@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 23-Dec-86 05:27:41 EST
Article-I.D.: bath63.688
Posted: Tue Dec 23 05:27:41 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Dec-86 21:12:15 EST
References: <861218032713.598038@RADC-MULTICS.ARPA> <683@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Reply-To: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
Lines: 20


Caught it.  It's none of the above, but rather one of (a) some version of
uuencode or (b) some beknighted gateway or comms implementation.

The character causing problems (in uuencoded UNITERM) is the tilde, or
twiddle, (or ~) character.  Some uuencoded programs contain twiddles.
Some uudecodes (e.g. mine) will handle twiddles.  However, twiddle **IS NOT**
in the 'official' UUENCODE character set.

From a look at the files, it appears that the twiddles are replacing caret,
or hat, or not (or ^) characters.  (Note that twiddle is ASCII 176 octal,
and hat is 136 octal.)

So, it looks like the answer is (a) if you're having uudecode problems,
check to see if there are twiddles in the file, and if so, turn them into
hats; and (b) to solve the new problem, of which UUENCODE generates files
containing twiddles, or possibly, which machine changes hats to twiddles
as the files get transmitted through...

Thanks to Leila Burrell-Davis at Sussex for her help in chasing this...