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Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.admin
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Cnews batching & 16 bit compress
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 03:15:26 GMT
Message-ID: <1990Jul09.031526.2371@looking.on.ca>
References: <1990Jul7.134552.4280@alfred.UUCP> <1990Jul08.130607.11867@nstar.uucp>

In article <1990Jul08.130607.11867@nstar.uucp> larry@nstar.uucp (Larry Snyder) writes:
>But how much space does it save (difference beween 12 and 16 bit) verses
>time to compress (difference between 12 and 16 bit)?  Just wondering?

The saving can be pretty good - 10 to 15%, sometimes more, which works out
to a lot over a long distance line.

What's not intuitive is that on most 32 bit machines, 16 bit compress is
NO SLOWER (and sometimes even times faster) than 12 and 13 bit compress.
As Henry now admits, unless you know your destination can't decompress a
16 bit file, you should use the 16 bit compress.

If you're on a 286 machine or other 16 bit-only machine, this is not true.
The 13 bit compress (or 12 if you must) can be a lot faster.  But let's
face it, those dinosaurs are fading away.  You can get a 386 32 bit motherboard
for around $600 these days.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473