The NFS server that holds my NetBSD src tree is a SunOS 4.1.4 system.
I've occasionally had problems in the past where a symlink in one of
the tar files does not get created correctly.  This morining I can't
seem to unpack any of the tar files:

tar: can't create src/bin/dd/CVS/Repository: Not a directory
tar: src/bin/dd: Not a directory
tar: can't create src/bin/dd/CVS/Entries: Not a directory
tar: src/bin/dd: Not a directory
tar: can't create src/bin/dd/CVS/Tag: Not a directory
...

bin is being created as a file!

would it be possible to use something portable for these source
archives? 

--sjg