rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) (06/15/91)
In article <1991Jun11.133457.28482@pensoft.uucp> kari@finn (Kari Karhi) writes: >Two suggestions. First, you could get Squash, available from NextConnections >for less than $100.00, and it would help conserve your existing disk. See an >earlier post by Jim Mynatt. Second, get yourself one of those double-density Squash is the most stupid software ever seen on a NeXT. Instead of writing a program that is compatible with hundreds and thousands of existing UNIX machines, i.e. writing a graphical user interface to (gnu)tar, compress, ar, et al. the author of this program thinks that by using a incompatible scheme and trusting the stupidity of naive users in combination with distributing for free (haha) a UnSquash only program, he can create a new standard by means of which he can cream off the money in the NeXT market. Sorry, I only hope that someone will find the time and write a similar program that interfaces to at, tar, ar, compress and uncompress. For such a program I would pay, but not for someone who tries to destroy standards for personal profit. (I think however that many people proficient enough to produce such a program would make it publicly available anyway...) Another neat thing would be a program that creates file packages for the NeXT. Ronald ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." G.B. Shaw | rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet
louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) (06/15/91)
In article <78577@brunix.UUCP> rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) writes: >Another neat thing would be a program that creates file packages for >the NeXT. If you're speaking of the Foo.pkg file packages, then you should read the release notes for the Installer application. Fire up DL, and look for "Installer" in the NextDev or ReleaseNotes targe. Installer.app comes with a tool to build your own packages, as I did for the SLIP code that I ported. The documentation also describes the format of the package, so if the tool they supply is inadaquate, you could build your own. louie
jiro@shaman.com (Jiro Nakamura) (06/16/91)
In article <78577@brunix.UUCP> rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) writes: > Squash is the most stupid software ever seen on a NeXT. Instead of > writing a program that is compatible with hundreds and thousands of > existing UNIX machines, i.e. writing a graphical user interface to > (gnu)tar, compress, ar, et al. the author of this program thinks that > by using a incompatible scheme and trusting the stupidity of naive > users in combination with distributing for free (haha) a UnSquash only > program, he can create a new standard by means of which he can cream > off the money in the NeXT market. I agree that the incompatibility of Squash with standard *NIX software is a major drawback. However, remember that most of the Squashed software will be NeXT-specific anyway (I think) or user-specific (archives, backups etc). Whatsmore, the author did an excellent job with the compression algorithm. Many many *NIX compression methods can handle NeXT sound files? Squash does a pretty good job on these. It also beats compress in most cases, I've found. The author is also not unprecendented in his distribution method. Sit for the Mac, I believe, was distributed in the same way (albeit the original versions were shareware). > Sorry, I only hope that someone will find the time and write a similar > program that interfaces to at, tar, ar, compress and uncompress. For > such a program I would pay, but not for someone who tries to destroy > standards for personal profit. (I think however that many people > proficient enough to produce such a program would make it publicly > available anyway...) What I hope for is that the author writes command line versions of Squash and also ports it over to other machines. If you want commercial quality compression (ie., better than compress), then you'd better pay for it. Let's hope that some really smart people (ie., not me) at the FSF make the next generation file compression package. One problem though, is that most of the really good compression algorithms are not publically available. Compress is based on the LZW algorithm, which is patented (as everyone knows ad nauseum) but apparently isn't being rigorously enforced in the *NIX kingdom as a file compression algorithm. Most of the good algorithms are spin-offs of LZW. Huffman just doesn't kick it, although some variants are quite good. It takes more than a good programmer to write a compression package. It takes a excellent mathematician and a superb lawyer (sigh...). I am waiting for a publicly available good archiving-compressing program, but until then, I'll use Squash. > Another neat thing would be a program that creates file packages for > the NeXT. Agreed. Note, I'm not disagreeing with you totally. I'm just taking a more realistic (?pessimistic?) view of what is possible today. - Jiro Nakamura jiro@shaman.com // Disclaimer: No connections with Agog (makers of Squash), although // I was a very active beta tester (I think) and have communicaed with // the author on many occasions. My general feeling is that he deserves // to be able to have bread on his table. -- Jiro Nakamura jiro@shaman.com Shaman Consulting (607) 256-5125 VOICE "Bring your dead, dying shamans here!" (607) 277-1440 FAX/Data
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.170228.2479@shaman.com> jiro@shaman.com (Jiro Nakamura) writes: > Many many *NIX compression methods can handle NeXT sound >files? No one forces you to use BSD compress on everything. Every 2.0/2.1 NeXT does come with a "sndcompress" utility, y'know. -=EPS=-