Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!solomon
From: solomon@rice.edu (Richard L. Solomon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: ZIP utility
Summary: Zip? Zip Good!
Message-ID: <5866@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 19 Mar 90 02:22:40 GMT
References: <1990Mar15.012316.24288@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <1501@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <27978@cup.portal.com>
Sender: root@rice.edu
Reply-To: solomon@screech.rice.edu (Richard L. Solomon)
Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
Lines: 30
Disclaimer: I'm not associated with PK but am an enthusiatic user of their S/W

In article <27978@cup.portal.com> ghost@cup.portal.com (Robert Bruce Ferrell) writes:
>I belive the latest release is 1.02... or is it 10.2? Anyway
>the distribution file is pkzip102.exe. release 1.01 did
>funny things to your files if you used it on '386 machines.

	It's 1.02.  Like any S/W early versions have problems.  If I recall
correctly the "funny things" was limited to cases where you specified that
dir paths be stored with files in the .ZIP.  Certain conditions would
cause the files to restore to the wrongs dirs or something.  (Consult the
pkzip102 docs for ACCURATE bug description.....)

>
>Come to think of it I've seen 1.02 perform differently when
>run on different machines.
>

	That's 'cuz it uses the '386's 32bit arithmetic when it detects
a 386, and it uses std when it detects '286/'86 processors.  The files
produced are no different regardless of CPU, the 386 is just lots faster.

>Take my advice, use ARC... its more stable and nowhere near as
>flakey and version/machine sensitive.

	IMHO, that's bad advice.  Pk is MUCH faster than ARC even on my
humble 7.14MHz V30.  Not to mention that I see avg compressions around
60% reduction (yep, 60) on large files.  Really big text files compress
around 75% sometimes.  

Richard Solomon
solomon@owlnet.rice.edu