🚀 go-pugleaf

Simple Problem ?  Inelegant solution.  If anyone can improve on it I would 
appreciate the input.

Scenario:
I received an incoming E-Mail message to my Lotus Notes account at work, 
complete with binary attachment.  Attachment has weird file name with a 
".bin" extension, but the text part of message tells me it is an MS Word 6 
for Mac document.  From previous experience normally  all I have to do is 
rename the DETACHED attachment to a ".doc" and the  Word for Mac or PC 
is totally happy with it and it opens as a proper document.

This particular attachment when renamed and opened by Word came up 
with a "what do you want read this file in as, text, rtf, Excel . . .   plus a 
long list of options. It opened as gobbledegook anyway.  However in the first 
few lines of gobbledegook I could make out the words Word 6, Macintosh 
etc. so I knew it really was a word document in some sort of disguise.

Stuffit wasn't interested in the file, neither was any other programme in 
my arsenal, BUT, having dredged up from brain some ancient knowledge 
about AppleSingle and AppleDouble formats used for mac files stored on 
non-mac systems, I tried to open the file with Fetch which is supposed to 
be able to translate these formats.  I discovered that Fetch can't directly 
open files on your own machine, no matter what they are called - it can 
only pull 'em from another by FTP and THEN translate when doing so.

So my inelegant but working solution was to deposit the file manually onto 
our NT server in a directory which is ALSO available via Windows NTs 
(sorry!)  internet services.  I was then able to use Fetch to pull the ".bin" 
file over by FTP and, voila, it was immediately recognised as applesingle 
and converted to a proper mac word 6 file.

Now I can't be doing all that every time I get an oddball e-mail.

PLEAASE PLEASE does anyone know of a program which could have read the 
AppleSingle file directly on my desktop and converted it straight away ?

PS don't suggest MPACK I have already tried it!
I was told MPACK 1.5 could do this but that was a load of cobblers, it 
munches away at the file and then says "couldn't find anything to convert". 
(even though in its preferences you can elect to decode applesingle format)  
I got MPACK off a CD, so I thought it might be the prog was faulty, so I even 
got it again straight off the web, but it gives same result.

What little hair I have left is nearly all torn out now - please save me.

Steve Parker
steve@parkfish.demon.co.uk