Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!yale!husc6!wjh12!djb From: djb@wjh12.harvard.edu (David J. Birnbaum) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: UNIX/MS-DOS Compress/ARC Keywords: compress, arc Message-ID: <276@wjh12.harvard.edu> Date: 9 Aug 88 13:35:51 GMT Reply-To: djb@wjh12.UUCP (David J. Birnbaum) Distribution: na Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge MA Lines: 29 This is a summary of the replies to an earlier posting, in which I inquired about methods for compressing files to speed transfers between a PC running MS-DOS and a VAX. I am grateful to the several people who responded; I tried to thank everyone individually by email, but some letters came back as undeliverable - sorry. There are two basic approaches: ARC and COMPRESS. ARC 5.21 is a common MS-DOS compression and archiving program. A UNIX version is available by ftp from CCVAX1.NCSU.EDU (logon as 'public'), where it is NEWARC.Z in volume 11 (Unix), subvolume 5. ARC does not compress as tightly as COMPRESS, but it is a convenient way of compressing several files in a single archive file. COMPRESS is available in two versions for MS-DOS; both of these are apparently available from SIMTEL20.ARPA by ftp. UNIX COMPRESS defaults to 16 bit compression; the MS-DOS 16 bit COMPRESS requires over 500K free memory. The second MS-DOS compress is a 12 bit version, which will run in machines with less memory. To compress files in UNIX for later decompression with 12 bit MS-DOS compress, use the -b 12 switch on the UNIX end. There is a commercial product called MKS Toolkit (by Mortice Kern Systems), which includes several UNIX type features for MS-DOS, including COMPRESS. Finally, I am grateful to the people who emailed executable COMPRESS programs for MS-DOS. David J. Birnbaum (djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] - djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet])