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From: jaw@riacs.edu (James A. Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: WANTED: News compression information...
Message-ID: <1990May31.233233.6352@riacs.edu>
Date: 31 May 90 23:32:33 GMT
References: <1990May29.202056.26271@ox.com> <BOB.90May31152322@volitans.MorningStar.Com>
Sender: news@riacs.edu (James A. Woods)
Organization: RIACS, NASA Ames Research Center
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# "don't compress that dwarf, hand me the pliers."  -- after firesign theatre

>   What are the implications of using compress in commercial sw?

since 'compress' is a component of s5r4 unix, it's been done very publicly.
you, too, can appropriate it in much the same manner as has at&t.

>   Are there any other, more miserly, compress programs available?

>>Some years ago, someone posted a micro-zcat to net.sources.  It
>>performed the uncompress-in-a-pipe function in about two dozen lines
>>of C, really pretty elegantly.  Of course, I can't dredge it up any
>>more.  Perhaps your friendly neighborhood source archive site would
>>have a copy?

the first micro-zcat was done in 1987 by karl f. fox of morningstar
technologies.  since then, it's become both more (and less),
as discussed under the rubric of other cult postings which
never were directed to an official public archive.

please excuse the ellipticity here, but since mr. fox, myself,
and paul eggert of twinsun.com have a closely-related official
entry in chongo's 7th intl. obfuscated C contest, we ask you *not*
to dredge up the old code for publicity here.

after mid-june, when the judges have pronounced, you'll come to
know more than you'd ever wanted to about this twisted effort.

ames!jaw