Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!endor!olson
From: olson@endor.harvard.edu (Eric K. Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: ** Stuffit ** vs Packit
Message-ID: <3569@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 16 Dec 87 15:38:04 GMT
References: <156@escargot.UUCP>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: olson@endor.UUCP (Eric K. Olson)
Organization: Lexington Software Design
Lines: 37
Keywords: Stuffit, Packit.

In a recent article Bruce Hoof writes:
>	Recently I have been reading about the pro's and con's of
>Stuffit and Packit.  Very recently there have been questions on
>compacting binary postings before posting them on the net.  This got me
>thinking and I decided to do a couple of experiments.
[Stuff about how Stuffit is significantly better at compressing than PackIt]
[Stuff about how programs are really big these days and news needs all the
compression it can get]
>	Lets face it folks.  A new generation is here. Stuffit does it
>better.  I like the smaller size. I like the shorter downloading time.
>I like the convience and speed.  I think Stuffit is benificial to the
>user as well as to the entire Usenet.

I agree wholehartedly.  Using Stuffit as the standard would be great, since
it compacts files down usually to less than 50% of their original size.
Unfortunately, Stuffit is only free for unpacking, not for packing, which
means that everyone that uploads stuff needs to pay the (admittedly very
small) shareware fee for packing with Stuffit (the other alternative is
that moderators Stuffit the things, but they have enough to do already).
Packit II does not make this stipulation, if I recall correctly (Packit III
DOES, which is why you don't see much packed with it).

Nonetheless, Stuffit has been posted to comp.binaries.macintosh, is available
on SUMEX, and, basically, should not be avoided as an alternative for packing.

While we're on the topic, has anyone heard of a compressing File System for 
the Mac?  Such a thing would automatically compress all Writes to a file,
and uncompress on read.  This would be slower than a normal file system,
but allow transparent compression.  This would be VERY convenient for me,
since I regularly have to deal with files containing 4 or 8-bit pictures,
ranging from 150K to 850K in size.  Any pointers would be appreciated.

-Eric

                                 I am not affiliated.
Eric K. Olson     olson@endor.harvard.edu     harvard!endor!olson     D0760
   (Name)                (ArpaNet)                 (UseNet)        (AppleLink)