Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari!munnari.oz!kre
From: kre@munnari.oz (Robert Elz)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: need help with xenix Kermit to PC procomm
Summary: base 90 ascii encoding is possible
Message-ID: <2315@munnari.oz>
Date: 25 Aug 88 02:28:40 GMT
References: <20302@neabbs.UUCP> <11744@oberon.USC.EDU> <6729@bigtex.uucp> <2906@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Sender: news@munnari.oz
Lines: 18

In article <2906@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes:
| Also, if kermit does 8-th bit quoting on a need basis it would
| seem that for transfers over 7-bit paths, base-85 coding (25%
| expansion) of binary files should result in faster transmission
| since kermit will always see an ascii input.

If you really want effeciency, the news "encode" and "decode" programs
give close to optimal ascii encoding (more or less base 90, about 23%
expansion .. that is, they put 13 bits of data in 16 bits transmitted),
provided that you don't need newlines, etc, which kermit doesn't.

These things are a part of all modern news distributions, they're used
with the -c7 sendbatch option.  What's more they're totally free, take
them and use them anywhere you like (they're simple filters, written in
C, and using essentially no OS dependant facilities, they should easily
move to anywhere there's a C compiler).

kre