Fish 'n' More 3/FishMoreVol3.bin/c/compress.readme

Text File | 1987-04-11 | 2KB | 35 lines

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!!)