mirror of https://github.com/fadden/nulib2.git
177 lines
9.9 KiB
HTML
177 lines
9.9 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<head>
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<title>NuLib Home Page</title>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
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<meta name="Microsoft Border" content>
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<meta name="description"
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content="Home page for NuLib, NuLib2, NufxLib, ShrinkIt, and NuFX (SHK) archives">
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<meta name="keywords"
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content="nulib, nulib2, nufxlib, shk, sdk, bxy, bse, shrinkit, nufx, apple, apple2, emulator">
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<link href="main.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
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</head>
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<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
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<h1 align="center">NuLib Home Page</h1>
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<p align="center"><u><b>Shortcuts</b></u><br>
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go to the <a href="downloads/index.htm">downloads</a> area<br>
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read the <a href="nulib2-manual.htm"> NuLib2 manual</a><br>
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see the <a href="nufxlibapi.htm">NufxLib library API</a> documentation<br>
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<a href="bugs.htm">report a bug</a> in NufxLib or NuLib2<br>
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check <a href="library/index.htm">the library</a> for old programs and misc docs</p>
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<p> </p>
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<p>This is the home page for NuLib, NuLib2, NufxLib, and various items related
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to ShrinkIt and NuFX archives.</p>
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<p> </p>
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<h2>What is NuLib?</h2>
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<p>NuLib is a disk and file archive program, similar in principle to PKZIP. Instead of ZIP
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archives, it manipulates NuFX archives, which are usually identified with
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".SHK", ".SDK", or ".BXY".</p>
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<p>The ".SHK" file extension is derived from ShrinkIt, the de facto
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archiving standard for Apple II computers. Both NuFX and ShrinkIt were developed by Andy Nicholas,
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and were initially released in January of 1989.</p>
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<p>In mid-1989, while a sophomore in college, I started playing around
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with the file format. My goal was to write a simple program that could
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list the contents of a NuFX file. I had recently finished my first class
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on C programming, and wanted a small project to play around with. I never
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intended to go any further with it than just being able to list files.</p>
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<p>Three name changes (NuView to NuARC to CShrink to NuLib) and more than three
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years later, NuLib was a full-featured archiver, and the code had finally settled down to where it could be left
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alone. Except for a major overhaul by Devin Reade in late 1996, NuLib
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hasn't changed much since.</p>
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<h2>What is NuLib2?</h2>
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<p>NuLib was functional, but had a number of flaws. It couldn't handle
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resource forks, it was clumsy to use with BXY (ShrinkIt wrapped in Binary II)
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archives, it used more memory than it needed to, and some features -- notably
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the archive integrity test -- were entirely broken. Due to generally poor
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architecture, it was difficult to fix problems and add features.</p>
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<p>NuLib2 is a replacement for NuLib. It does pretty much everything the
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original NuLib did, and adds a number of new features. NuLib2 is
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distributed as source code, under the terms of the BSD License.</p>
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<p>The <a href="nulib2-manual.htm">NuLib2 manual</a> has a quick comparison of
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the two programs.</p>
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<p>One additional "feature" of NuLib2: it was built on top of NufxLib.</p>
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<h2>What is NufxLib?</h2>
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<p>NufxLib is a NuFX file archive manipulation library. Unlike most other
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compression library products, NufxLib goes beyond extracting and listing files.
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Full support for additions, deletions, and renaming of archived files is
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supported, with a transaction-oriented interface for maximum efficiency and
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reliability.</p>
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<p>A thorough description of the library's features and interface is available <a href="nufxlibapi.htm">here</a>.
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NufxLib is distributed as source code under the terms of the BSD License.</p>
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<p>Possible uses for NufxLib:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Command-line applications like NuLib2.</li>
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<li>GUI applications like <a href="http://a2ciderpress.com/">CiderPress</a>,
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which can isolate ShrinkIt code in a DLL.</li>
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<li>Automatic handling of .SHK archives in Apple II emulators and 2IMG
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converters.</li>
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<li>Possible inclusion of NuFX support in mainstream applications like WinZip.</li>
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<li>Embedded applications, such as a filesystem driver that transparently
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unpacks NuFX archives (a la "zipfolders").</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Why did I do this?</h2>
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<p>In late 1997, I cranked up my Apple IIgs for the first time in a long
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while. It failed to boot. The old 100MB hard drive had seized up
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from "stiction". A friend of mine and I managed to resurrect
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that drive and a second 80MB hard drive that had also seized up, but it was
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clear the drives' days were numbered.</p>
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<p>I replaced the old ones with a new 2GB drive, which was the smallest I could
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find in retail stores at the time. It occurred to me then that it would be
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useful, as well as prudent, to have a complete file archive of the contents of
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my hard drive. GS/ShrinkIt was capable of constructing such a thing, but
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couldn't extract from it because the archive was too large. YankIt and NuLib could do the extraction, but
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were too clumsy to be useful.</p>
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<p>I resolved to write a program that could handle these archives. I
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thought it would be best to write it as a Win32 GUI application. However,
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I also wanted a better version of NuLib for UNIX. The NuLib sources are a
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pile of dung, so adding the features I wanted would be most easily accomplished
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by rewriting the whole thing from scratch.</p>
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<p>Around the middle of 1998, I started fleshing out the API for something I
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called "NufxLib". The library would do all the hard work for
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both command line and GUI applications, and perhaps would be embedded into Apple
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II emulators as well, allowing seamless access to ShrinkIt-compressed disk
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images.</p>
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<p>For the next 1.5 years, I would occasionally pick up the project and then
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leave it alone for weeks at a time. This continued until I left a big
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company for a small startup, and knew that my free time was about to evaporate
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entirely. I decided to finish up what I could and make it available.
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Version 1.0 was released in May of 2000.</p>
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<p>In December of 2002, I decided it was time to learn how to write Windows
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software. Learning a new system is easier when you're working with
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something you know, so I decided to use NufxLib as the foundation of a Win32
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application. The result, CiderPress, is available from
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<a href="https://github.com/fadden/ciderpress">github</a>.</p>
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<h2>Visible Changes in v1.1</h2>
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<p>New stuff in NufxLib v1.1:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Support for SQueeze and LZC compression. NufxLib now fully supports
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all compression formats described in the NuFX specification.</li>
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<li>Support for zlib "deflate" compression and libbz2 BWT
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compression as extensions to the
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NuFX standard.</li>
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<li>Compression code may be disabled to reduce the size of the library.
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A new "feature test" interface allows applications to determine
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which methods are supported.</li>
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<li>The "launder" program has been updated to allow selection of the
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compression format to convert to. ("Launder" converts all
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files and disks in an archive from one compression format to another.)</li>
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</ul>
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<p>New stuff in NuLib2 v1.1:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Support for listing, testing, and extracting files from Binary II archives.</li>
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<li>New "-z" flag to use "deflate" or "bzip2".</li>
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<li>Extended help output with "-h" command.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Visible Changes in v2.0</h2>
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<p>Version 2.0 is actually a rather small release. Some changes in NufxLib broke
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binary compatibility, so it was necessary to increment the major version.</p>
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<p>New stuff in NufxLib v2.0:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Can be built as a Windows DLL.</li>
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<li>NufxLib no longer tries to free memory allocated by the application (a
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callback is used instead).</li>
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<li>A high-ASCII text stripper is now available (useful for DOS text files and
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Merlin 8 source code).</li>
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</ul>
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<p>New stuff in NuLib2 v2.0:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Filename comparisons are now case-insensitive.</li>
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<li>Can be built with NufxLib in a DLL.</li>
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<li>Changed handling of reserved names like "AUX" so that the
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original names are better preserved. This creates filenames with
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"%00" in them, which could confuse older versions of NuLib2 (e.g.
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"nulib2 -ae %00aux" will not work well in v1.x).</li>
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<li>Files are now added with ':' as the pathname separator, regardless of
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OS. Win32 handling now recognizes both '/' and '\' as path separators.</li>
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<li>Disk images extracted with "-ee" now have ".PO" add to
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their filenames. This should make it easier to load them in an Apple
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II emulator.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Visible Changes in v3.0</h2>
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<p>Version 3.0 was primarily a code refresh, updating the code for about 8 years
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of progress in compilers and operating systems. The Windows and Mac OS X
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builds were fixed, and proper handling of Mac OS Roman filenames was added to
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Linux and Mac OS X. The version was bumped because of possibly
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incompatible API changes.</p>
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<p>A new test, "test-names", was added to check Unicode filename handling.</p>
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<h2>Future Directions</h2>
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<p>The code appears to be stable, so I'm going to leave it alone for a while.
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If you're interested in developing applications with NufxLib, send a message to
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fadden -at- fadden.com.</p>
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<hr>
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<p>NuLib, NuLib2, and NufxLib were written by <a href="http://www.fadden.com/">Andy
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McFadden</a>. Please see the documentation for each product to
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see a list of contributors.</p>
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</body>
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</html>
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