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From: wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Re: Shrink To Fit (STF) Mac data compression.
Message-ID: <745@astrovax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 21:18:13 EST
Article-I.D.: astrovax.745
Posted: Thu Feb 27 21:18:13 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 02:38:47 EST
References: <678@aicchi.UUCP> <736@astrovax.UUCP> <308@rosevax.UUCP> <1686@utah-gr.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics
Lines: 22

>>  *  use "compress" on binhex'd files before posting and "uncompress"
>>     after recieving.
>>
>>  *  incorporate a compress-style packing algorithm in a new version
>>     of binhex.  
> 
> The first is not a good idea, because compressed files use all 8 bits of
> each byte, and are therfore not mailable.  uuencoding them to mail makes
> a file almost as big as the original binhex.  The 30% you see from
> compress is basically the difference between a file full of printing
> characters and one full of 8 bit characters.

I suggest using the btoa and atob programs which were distributed with
compress rather than uuencode and uudecode.  btoa produces smaller output than
uuencode does. If one has compress then one should also have these two
programs.  I typically get a 30% total space saving for text after applying
compress, then btoa.  It was a great way to mail hack to my brother.

Sorry for the delay in this reply, but I ordinarily don't read this group.
-- 
Bill Sebok			Princeton University, Astrophysics
{allegra,akgua,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,noao,philabs,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls