From: jepler@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jeff Epler)
Subject: Re: GAME BYTES: ARJ compression.  O.K.?
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Keywords: game bytes magazine
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 23:50:06 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.011656.20486@b11.b11.ingr.com> ross@kaos.b11.ingr.com writes:
>--
>A quick question to all game bytes reader, present and future:  Due to
>my constant battle to enhance Game Bytes by adding more to it yet
>still having to fit it on a floppy for transportation purposes, I
>resorted to compressing issue #8 with the ARJ compression program
>(version 2.3).  I wound up saving over 100K of space vs. PKZIP 1.1 and
>thus could fit it on a 1.2MB floppy.  The program (ARJ) is not as
>widely known as PKZIP, yet is far superior in terms of features and
>compression ability.  Without it, I would have been in a real bind.
>Who knows what the future of PKZIP holds.  I'll evaluate that as it
>happens.

Well the "future" of PKZIP seemed to just have happened.  PKZIP2.04C was
released yesterday, and seems to be (mostly) working.  I would much prefer
this (or even 1.93A, or info-zip's ZIP19) to ARJ.  

For one thing, the UNIX system I use doesn't seem to have an UNARJ compiled
for it, and I'm not up to taking care of that.. (I don't even know what 
CC means! :) But if you use a variety of ZIP, I can use that here.  I would
at least like to be able to know that the file will uncompress when I get
done with it at 2400 baud... :)

The newest release of ZIP has been reported to do 0-15% better on compression
suites than 1.93A, and had a difference of "<1.5K" on a file compressing
to 800K versus ARJ (2.30 I would guess..)  So this would be a minor difference,
not too large if you can include a SFX header of some sort.

(Of course, I'm against SFXes for the same reason: I can't view them before
I take them along the slow part of the road.. :( )

The new ZIP is supposed to have multivolume support too, though some in
comp.compression weren't too enthused (IE it wouldn't function as well as
ARJ, actually requiring you feed it removable media as it went, and requiring
a file named "<name>.zip" on each disk, all of which make multivolume annoying.
But if you need to go to multivolumes, you could also use a simple file-
splitter with ZIP or ARJ or anything else, that would work with a
"copy/b 1+2 gamebyte.zip" to restore...
>
>My question is, does anyone vigorously object to my continuing to use
>ARJ for future editions of the magazine?  I'm also considering sending
>up each issue as a self-extracting ARJ so the program itself wouldn't
>be necessary to have to extract the magazine.  Any thoughts on the
>matter?  Post them publically if you like as we might start an
>intelligent debate on the matter.  On the other hand, you opinion,
>emailed to me, is also valuable and takes up far less bandwidth.

Not really "vigorously" -- But now that we have the "real" new PKZIP,
(With info-zip's not far behind, I'm sure) I think that's a much better
alternative. (I'll also be forced to download the UNARJ program too..)
>
>Thanks for reading Game Bytes.

Well I have yet to download #8...  When's 9 due?
--
Jeff Epler jepler@nyx.cs.du.edu or bx304@cleveland.freenet.edu (preferred)

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