Zageszczacz¢-----------¢¢This program appeared in TGR 06 but I was sent this 'observation' and decided it made better reading and more sense than the short doc in TGR 06.¢*¢Program observations by theOCCUPANT¢¢'Zageszczacz' is a binary file compression utility which reduces the size of the file without having a noticeable effect on the file program or its loading characteristics¢ Attention grabbing name, but also a valued program for those of us who like to minimize wasted disk space. I have used this program to compress binary disk files on dozens of disks and noted that a saving of 20% of the disk space was realized.¢ 20% disk space saving (as you know) means that for each DOS 2.0 disk a typical 100+ of fee sectors was gained by compressing the binary files on the disk.¢ So why not use it on all of your binary files? Please consider the following capability limitations of the utility.¢ It does not work on all files. For those it does not work on, sometimes the result is a slightly larger file (typically a few sectors larger). So, if you use this utility on all of the files on a disk, it is not always advantageous. However, a few sector increase is offset by significant reduction on other files. In no case did this utility convert a file into one which did not load or operate properly.¢ One obvious improvement which would be helpful (to me) would be for the author, Dariuz Rogozinski, to care that I don't read Polish, and put his prompts in English. But, since it was made in Poland, I guess that the author would naturally select his native language, is understandable. If you also do not read Polish, pay attention to the prompts which relate to source (wczytania) and destination (zapisania) disks because after you read in, compress and write to your destination disk; the program asks you if you would like to write the compressed file to another destination disk.¢ If, at this juncture, you do not notice the zapisania prompt, and in an attempt to load the next file for compression, type in the next file's name; you will write the already saved compressed file over your next file. Do you understand? It is important to realise this potential source for error!¢ You have to specify drive # with the filespec.¢ Other than these (trivial) improvements possible in the program, I see no reason why not to compress all of your binary files (but then again I don't understand why some Atarians do not accept the "free" sectors available through using DOS 2.5.¢ I have saved well over 100 sectors on several files which originally were less than 250 sectors.¢¢ THIS FILE IS NOT DOCUMENTATION FOR ZAGESZCZACZ - PLEASE REFER TO THE TGR DOCUMENTATION FILE SUPPLIED WITH THE PROGRAM - OR, IF YOU CAN NOT FIND IT REQUEST A COPY FROM:¢¢ theOCCUPANT¢ P.O.Box 116¢ SPOTSWOOD, N.J. 08884¢ USA.¢
