mdlawler@bsu-cs.UUCP (Mike Lawler) (03/13/89)
I feel that there have been a few points that have been
overlooked in the discussion of Arc, Zoo, and Zip for
comp.binaries.ibm.pc.
The first of these is portability. Lets use the Stereo as
an example. Isn't it nice to be able to make tapes on one
machine and be able to play them on another without problems.
This is not possible in the computer world because of differing
architectures and disk read/write schemes. Rahul has done the
computer world a great favor with the advent of Zoo. Zoo works
with no problems on the Atari, Amiga, Vms, Msdos, and Unix
systems. This leaves out the Mac and Apple families. Rahul has
made it easy for people to overcome these families as well by
making the source code available so that people can make
improvements to Zoo and send them to him to be incorporated into
the main program.
He has also went to great lengths to make Zoo very usable.
Zoo has a very small and easy to use self extraction utility for
Msdos machines called Sez. Rahul has also written Fiz to make it
possible for people to extract as much data as possible from
damaged Zoos. He has also supplied Stuff to feed pathnames to
Zoo on Msdos machines to make it easy for people to archive
entire directory structures. bilf has also been created to make
it possible to use Zoo on Vms systems. Finally, there is Looz.
This is a wonderful program. It allows you to keep .com and .exe
files in an archive on Msdos systems and extract them directly
into memory when you want to use them providing that they are
under 64 K bytes in size. This greatly reduces wasted space for
small programs such as ones that occupy 100/500 bytes that use
several clusters of unnecessary disk space. It also allows you
to keep files in an archive all of the time.
Zoo can also extract files from a zoo leaving them in
compressed form on Msdos machines. This makes it both faster and
easier to extract the files and resort them or move them to
another Zoo without having to uncompress them.
Rahul also writes very good documentation for all of these
programs and he maintains them as well. He is always welcoming
improved code or ports to other machines.
Basically, we have the alternative of using Arc which is not
as portable and does not have as many features as Zoo or using
Zip which is an infant program that is still in it's development
stages or using Zoo.
Zoo is already developed for several systems and people are
able to port it to even more systems if they want to. It is a
program that has been supported and improved by its users. And
as for the people that say Zip is faster and that it compresses
better there is only one thing that can be said about that. You
have your choice of using a program that is fast and that
compresses great that is not portable and that does not offer
near as many helpful utilities as Zoo or using Zoo. If
Rahul incorporates faster code and better
compression algorithms Zoo will clearly be a
superior archiving program. It will do everything that I've
already explained and it will be fast and compress as good as any
other program. I think that we, as a group, should look at the
long term affects of our choice of archiving programs before we
chose so that we will be served in the best possible manner by
the program and from my observations I think that Zoo wins hands
down for features, support, and continual improvement.
--
Mike Lawler UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mdlawler
ARPA: mdlawler@bsu-cs.bsu.edujeremy@mips.COM (Jeremy M. Schneider) (03/14/89)
I've had no luck sending my yes vote on zoo to roy, using
any of the posted addresses. I hope this vote will be
counted.
--
Jeremy M. Schneider jeremy@mips.com
MIPS Computer Systems {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!jeremy
930 Arques Avenue (408) 991-7805
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 "Everything I say is true."steve@lucifer.UUCP (Steve Goodwin) (03/16/89)
In article <6073@bsu-cs.UUCP> mdlawler@bsu-cs.UUCP (Mike Lawler) writes: > > I feel that there have been a few points that have been >overlooked in the discussion of Arc, Zoo, and Zip for >comp.binaries.ibm.pc. > ...... <discussion deleted> >-- >Mike Lawler UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mdlawler > ARPA: mdlawler@bsu-cs.bsu.edu May I just add my complete agreement with the above sentiments. With many PCs and a UNIX system to look after, I'm much more interested in a program that runs well in many environments than with marginal improvements in speed or compression. Doubtless others have differing views, but in zoo we have something approaching a 'standard'. Why do we have to keep changing? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Steve Goodwin | | Electronic Control Group, | | Lucas Diesel Systems, Phoenix Way, Cirencester, Glos. GL7 1QG U.K. | | Tel: (44) 285 67981 Fax: (44) 285 68258 Twx: 43561 | | | | steve@lucifer.UUCP or ..!ukc!lucifer!steve (depending on the | | peculiarities of you or your mailer). :-) | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Steve Goodwin | | Electronic Control Group, | | Lucas Diesel Systems, Phoenix Way, Cirencester, Glos. GL7 1QG U.K. | | Tel: (44) 285 67981 Fax: (44) 285 68258 Twx: 43561 | | | | steve@lucifer.UUCP or ..!ukc!lucifer!steve (depending on the | | peculiarities of you or your mailer). :-) | | | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------