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From: roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Qs about Squish device driver w/ Ram Disk
Keywords: ram device driver squish
Message-ID: <00gHs1w163w@cybrspc>
Date: 11 Nov 90 18:02:08 GMT
References: <1990Nov10.113850.16526@techbook.com>
Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN
Lines: 20

oury@techbook.com (David Oury) writes:

>   Recently i heard of a device driver called `Squish' which 
>  compressed/decompressed data to/from the disk drives so that
>  one obtained twice the usable space.  Does anyone have experience
>  with this or similiar creatures?

I think the 'twice the available space' claim is a best-case situation.
Any compression algorithm is going to do well on some data and poorly on
others. In the case, say, of a compressed file (such as a ZIPfile or an
.exe that has been LZEXE'd), the device driver may not be able to
compress the data at all. In fact, it may _expand_ the data in the
attempt. There will also be a time penalty paid for a software approach,
as well as a memory penalty. Most of the powerful compression techniques
need a hefty chunk of memory in which to work.

--
Roy M. Silvernail |+|  roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu  |+| #define opinions ALL_MINE;
main(){float x=1;x=x/50;printf("It's only $%.2f, but it's my $%.2f!\n",x,x);}
"This is cyberspace." -- Peter da Silva  :--:  "...and I like it here!" -- me