Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.comm:3159 comp.sys.mac.programmer:23326
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!hoss!fergvax!231b3679
From: 231b3679@fergvax.unl.edu (Mike Gleason)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Mac packing program. Could Mac handle it?
Keywords: pack
Message-ID: <231b3679.670804293@fergvax>
Date: 4 Apr 91 22:31:33 GMT
References: <1991Apr1.221555.1836@ucselx.sdsu.edu> <1991Apr3.191534.21833@jhereg.osa.com>
Sender: news@hoss.unl.edu (Network News Administer)
Organization: University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Lines: 40

andrew@jhereg.osa.com (Andrew C. Esh) writes:

>Yes, as a matter of fact I think we originated the idea. AutoUnstuffit
>Shell came packed with one of the early versions of Stuffit. The first time
>I saw it was in 1988, I believe. It is a Stuffit archive that has a small
>application in the recourse fork (the stuffed files are in the data fork)
>which, when double clicked, unstuffs all the files. Many software
>distributors use it to compress files onto fewer distribution disks. Steve
>Jasik, author of "The Debugger" uses another auto decopressor to ship his
>stuff too. I forget the name of that one, but I think it works with
>compactor files.

I don't remember the original post, but I think the poster wanted to know if
there was a program that would keep itself compressed, and when run it would
decompress itself to memory.  There is a program for the Amiga called Power
Packer that does this.  My friend keeps his little-used unZoo program Power
Packed.  Then when he runs unZoo, it transparently decompresses itself, and
runs.  When he quits, it is back to it's compressed state.  I guess Disk
Doubler kind of does this, but I doubt you could use a program compressed with
DD on another machine without the DD INIT.

I've written a little doohickey that compresses resoruces (look for it in
about a month on Sumex, it'll be free, PD, and with source code), and I was
wondering if it were possible to do some sort of power packing on the mac. I
imagine it would have one normal CODE resource which would decompress the rest.
The big problem I see with something like this, is if the user would want to
go in and customize something with ResEdit, and everything would be compressed.
I don't have System 7 yet, which is supposed to have compressed resources,
which will probably obselete my little program and Ben Haller's LZWRez anyway.
Perhaps the "important" programmers who get the 7.0 betas could fill us in on
how this is done (is everything compressed, or just things like PICTs?  how
efficient is it?).

_mike gleason

>-- 
>Andrew C. Esh			andrew@osa.com
>Open Systems Architects, Inc.	
>Minneapolis, MN 55416-1528	So much System,
>(612) 525-0000			so little CPU time...