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1992-03-11
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SYSPACK - Device drivers compressor.
Copyright (C) 1992 by Vadim V. Vlasov, Moscow, Russia.
All Rights Reserved.
What is it for?
---------------
SYSPACK is a utility to compress DOS device drivers (as a rule, *.SYS
files). It may be used to make Your device drivers to eat less space
on hard disk or seem to be more compact than they really are. I don't
want to convince anybody that it is of much use, however, compressed
device drivers may be more convenient in some cases. (If You know a
good reason to use or distribute compressed drivers instead of
uncompressed, please let me know.)
Principles of operation.
------------------------
A SYSPACKed device driver contains decompression code and compressed
data from original driver. When it is installed and receives from DOS
initialization request it unpacks the data, restores original device
header and passes control to the device driver. From that time on
the device driver behaves identically to its non-packed original.
Usage.
------
The command line to invoke SYSPACK should contain one or two
parameters:
>SYSPACK <in-file-name> [<out-file-name>]
If the out-file-name is omitted, the original file is renamed into
"filename.BAK" and compressed device driver created instead.
Time stamp for compressed driver is duplicated from original.
No unpacking option is supported, so don't remove backup copy until
You ensure that compressed driver works O'K.
Error messages.
---------------
Besides error messages reporting of some errors with files access there
are few specific to SYSPACK ones:
Unexpected file size: xxxx
- the size of original device driver may not exceed 45K-bytes.
Incorrect device header
- either the input file is not in device driver format or
it contains more than one driver - both cases are unacceptable.
Possible problems.
------------------
I don't know a correct way to distinguish amount of memory available
for device driver. So no check of memory size is performed. It may
sometimes lead to errors when the packed driver is loaded high. If this
happens it is likely that non-packed driver also can't be loaded high.
However, SYSPACKed driver requires a little more memory for
installation.
License.
--------
Copyright (C) 1992 by Vadim V. Vlasov, Moscow, Russia.
All Rights Reserved.
- You are free to use SYSPACK for Your personal needs.
- You may also use it for packing device drivers You are distributing
*if* no fee is charged for device drivers which are distributed in
packed format (i.e. the drivers are freeware).
- You may copy and distribute SYSPACK for noncommercial use *if*:
no fee is charged for use, copying or distribution of SYSPACK
program.
it is distributed together with this README file
it is not modified in any way.
In any other case You may contact me to work out license agreement.
Note:
This program is provided AS IS without any warranty, expressed or
implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular
purpose.
----------------
If You have any questions, comments or find out any problems with its
usage please contact:
Vadim V. Vlasov,
Inst. for Nuclear Research of the Russian Acad. Sci.,
60th October Anniversary prospect, 7a,
117312, Moscow, Russia
phone: 7-095-133-6533 (weekday 10h-18h Moscow time)
Internet: vvlasov@inucres.msk.su