Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-adm!brl-smoke!smoke!prandt!tweten@ames-nas.arpa From: tweten@ames-nas.arpa Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: Re: Compaction Algorithm (pack vs compress) Message-ID: <1504@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 14:46:53 EST Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1504 Posted: Tue Mar 4 14:46:53 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 8-Mar-86 22:16:05 EST Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA Lines: 19 From: Guy Harris The only disadvantage is that it tends to eat virtual (and physical) memory; as Peter Honeyman once put it, "more than two compresses makes disks dance!" I don't care, since my machine is a one-user machine, but on a multi-user machine this may make a difference. I'm also not sure whether the latest "compress" uses memory that freely. Compress version 4.0 reduced its memory requirement to the point that I was able to port the full-blown (16-bit compressed codes) version to PC/MS-DOS, using the Microsoft C compiler. Compiled for 16-bit codes, it requires about 460 K bytes of user memory on a PC. Naturally, the 12-bit code compilation takes much less. To anticipate any inquiries, source code is available from the Info-IBMPC public domain source library, in directory at USC-ISIB.ARPA. By manipulating compile-time definitions one can compile all the standard (4.2, System V, etc.) versions from it, in addition to being able to compile PC/MS-DOS big and small versions.