.PAK files.
I think we have a misunderstanding here. Are you saying that "running"
a PAK file to dissolve it is dangerous? Or are you saying that
downloading a file which has a .PAK extension under the surmise
that it actually IS a PAK file is dangerous, since one doesn't
really know what the file is just because it has a PAK extension.
Here, on Plink, and elsewhere, where files are downloaded and
checked by sysops, this doesn't present a problem. Elsewhere
it might, if that's what you meant.
Secondly, I don't know that Mark has any intention to make PAK
compatible with any other systems. PAK is the first utility written
strictly for the Amiga. All others (ARC, ZOO, LAR, Squeeze, etc)
were portovers from other operating systems. If people keep their
wits about them, and sysops everywhere provide correctly named
files, there shouldn't be any problems. It's nice to go into an
IBM area with my Amiga and download @ 2400 baud, unARC *their* ARC
files then move it to an MS Dos disk with Dos2Dos and run it under
the Transformer, rather than sleeping thru a download done under
MS Dos/Transformer itself. I'm not Anti-ARC.
Outside of text files, though, I don't know a lot of IBM folks who
come to Amiga sigs to download files, though, since the last time
I looked, there was no Amiga emulator for them. 🙂