Xref: utzoo comp.sources.d:2057 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:166 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!jack!elgar!ford From: ford@elgar.UUCP (Ford Prefect ) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: Standard for file transmission Message-ID: <145@elgar.UUCP> Date: 8 May 88 02:08:32 GMT References: <292@cullsj.UUCP> <55@psuhcx.psu.edu> <4740@teddy.UUCP> <1082@maynard.BSW.COM> <9644@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: ford@kenobi.UUCP (Mike "Ford" Ditto) Organization: Elgar Corporation, San Diego, CA Lines: 41 Keywords: protocol compression source Summary: PC != IBM-PC In article <9644@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> laba-5ac@web7f.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Erik Talvola) writes: >What's wrong with getting a 16-bit Compress executable file for the PC >which was compiled with a proper C compiler? Then, you can run a 16-bit >compress on any PC. You are right in that you may not be able to compile >it with all C compilers, but you can run the executable on any PC (as long >as you have ~500K free). There are a few problems with this approach: 1) Such a compiler has to exist for the operating system you are running. Obviously, the author had his brain in Ms.Dos mode, which, since the article was cross-posted to comp.binaries.ibm-pc, is forgivable in this case. But one of the articles that was being followed up to mentioned an O.S. that only supported 64k segments. Compress just won't work in such an environment without major redisign (like keeping the arrays in a disk file :-). 2) The executable you get must be for your CPU! This is obvious, of course, but I keep detecting a definite ibm-pc-chauvanist state of mind in this discussion. Don't forget that there are people who are still running unix on PDP-11's and proud of it! The PDP-11 is very similar to the 8086 except that nobody does anything as kludgey as geferkin with the segment registers! So the best you can get is 64k code, 64k data. In other words, discussion of a standardized compression format must take into account the existence of small machines. And "PC" != "Intel Cpu". Personally, I use 16-bit compress since I don't need to talk to such small machines. But if I need to post a binary to the net, I will probably use 12-bit compress, because I've never heard of a machine or compiler that couldn't run it. -=] Ford [=- "Once there were parking lots, (In Real Life: Mike Ditto) now it's a peaceful oasis. ford%kenobi@crash.CTS.COM This was a Pizza Hut, ...!sdcsvax!crash!kenobi!ford now it's all covered with daisies." -- Talking Heads