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From: kgowen@cie.uoregon.edu (Kevin Gowen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Executrix info wanted
Summary: There's LOT'S of these puppies around
Keywords: PKLITE, LZEXE, DIET
Message-ID: <1991Jan9.192245.18115@ariel.unm.edu>
Date: 9 Jan 91 19:22:45 GMT
References: <1991Jan9.075800.1019@ducvax.auburn.edu> <valley.663439441@gsbsun>
Sender: news@ariel.unm.edu (News supported software)
Reply-To: kgowen@cie.uoregon.edu (Kevin Gowen)
Organization: University of Oregon Campus Information Exchange
Lines: 46

In article <valley.663439441@gsbsun> valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) writes:
>swanger@ducvax.auburn.edu writes:
>
>>I recently received an ad from Knowledge Dynamics Corporation about a product
>>of theirs named Executrix.  The following is an excerpt from the ad:
>
>>Executrix supposedly compresses .EXE files into a format that typically takes
>>30% less disk space, but the file remains directly executable from DOS.  It
>>compresses your file and then prepends an 800 byte decompressor to the front of
>>the compressed data.  When you execute the program, the decompressor is
>>triggered and loaded into memory.  It then dynamically relocates into high
>>memory, loads, decompress, and executes your program.
>>.
>>. (the rest of the ad/text deleted)
>>.
>
>
>Isn't this the same thing as PKLITE (shareware) and at least one other
>(whose name escapes me) that is freeware?
>
>Note: I've never any program like this.  Guess I never saw the need...
>(I remember a discussion many years ago about wanting to get NETHACK to
>fit on a 360K floppy [so that users with only a dual floppy could use it].
>Same sort of problem...)


Executable compression programs seem to the latest ms-dos fad.  Last year, I
was introduced to the public domain LZEXE, and since then I have found out
about PKLITE, DIET (from Japan) and several others.  In fact, programmers
are even starting to write shell programs to handle them all.

I have used LZEXE on a commercial product I am developing and am most impressed
with the results.  It took an executable which I had written and optimized in
MSC 6.0 which was +- 147K in size and compacted it to +- 56K (!!)  And I can
tell *no* difference in the time it takes to load and execute (!!!!).  It
enabled me to fit everything onto one 360K floppy and thus meet my contract
specifications.

This is the extent of my experience with executable compressors.  Perhaps there
are others with more extensive war stories...

One last note, I would not recommend using one of these compressors if your
program uses overlays.  

-kevin
kgowen@cie.uoregon.edu