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-
- This is a partial re-release of compress version 4.0, first released
- on disk #6. I had reports of problems with that released version,
- and at the time, was not using it myself.
-
- However, I now regularly compress files on several unix hosts before
- downloading to the amiga (and vice versa) so this version of compress
- has had more testing and I am far more confident in it working correctly.
-
- Except for the manual page, I have only included files that have changed,
- refer to disk #6 for the rest of the released files.
-
- There are several versions of the compress executable, each with an
- extension of the form ".bxx", where "xx" is the maximum number of
- "bits" that compress is capable of handling. The larger the number of
- "bits", the more memory required to execute compress. Note that most
- Unix versions of compress use 16 for bits by default and thus produce
- compressed files that cannot be decompressed on a standard 512K amiga.
- To be safe, when compressing files on a Unix system, give compress
- a -b15 arg, or even -b14.
-
- One last note. This version will compile under Manx 3.30E but crashes
- the machine when run. I have not yet bothered to track down the bug
- and fix it, so the executables are all Lattice (3.10) executables.
-
- LATE NEWS FLASH -- I have just experienced some problems with large binary
- files compressed on a Sun and downloaded to the Amiga. Decompressing
- sometimes yields files that are 10 or 20 times bigger. A 30K compressed
- file was expanded to over 600K. Compress is efficient, but not THAT
- efficient! Groan. And just when I thought we were home free. I am not
- certain that it is a problem with compress, but beware...
-
- -Fred
- 25-Dec-86 (Merry Christmas!!)
-