taob@pnet91.cts.com (Brian Tao) (11/03/90)
I am having a heated debate with a friend concerning DDDeluxe 5.0 versus
ShrinkIt 3.03 as the best packer. Since neither of us is budging in our
opinions, we decided to put the question to the net: which packing program do
you prefer and why? I prefer ShrinkIt over DDDeluxe, and said friend holds
the opposite view. We don't want to involve GS/ShrinkIt since it does not run
on 8-bit Apple II's. My personal prediction is that the response from the net
will support my view, but I've been dead wrong before...
COMMENTS ON THIS PLEASE!!!
(anxiously waiting
your opinions...)
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ | Brian T. Tao | UUCP: torag!pnet91!taob |
/ \ | University of Toronto | INET: taob@pnet91.cts.com |
\ The Apple II / | Scarberia, ON | taob@pro-micol.cts.com |
/ Lives On!! \ |:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::|
\ / | "Computer guru? Someone who got their computer a |
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ | couple of weeks before you did." (Alvin Toffler) |marekp@pnet91.cts.com (Marek Pawlowski) (11/03/90)
Well, Brian, obviously ShrinkIt has the better advantage, being able to
create archives or individual files, rather than packing up a whole disk (like
DDD can only do) which is inefficient. That's a good enough reason to use
ShrinkIt.
/* Marek Pawlowski, marekp@{generic|pnet91|contact|bkj386|torag|aunix}.uucp */
/* President, Intelligent Twist Software, 250 Harding Blvd, PO BOX 32017 */
/* Richmond Hill, Ontario, L4C 9M7, CANADA. */alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu (SCOTT ALFTER) (11/03/90)
ShrinkIt's a documented standard. It's portable, too--I can work with
ShrinkIt archives on my IIe or on this Sun that I'm using right now.
(I used to have NuLib installed on a NeXT, but I only use that machine
for talk and irc anymore because it's so far from here and the network
slows things down considerably.) I grabbed a copy of DD Deluxe
somewhere and took a look at it; it didn't seem to be half the program
that ShrinkIt is.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Alfter _/_
/ v \ Apple II:
Internet: alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu ( ( the power to be your best!
GEnie: S.ALFTER \_^_/taob@pnet91.cts.com (Brian Tao) (11/04/90)
Thanks for your reply. So far ShrinkIt is winning 2-0 over DDDeluxe (the
other vote was from Marek). I typed up a rather extensive report detailing
the results of some of my informal comparisons which I uploaded to a local BBS
where the debate was going on. Here it is:
------------------------------------------------------------------
I ran a few benchmarks comparing four archival utilities. ShrinkIt! 3.03
(SHK), DDDeluxe 5.0 (DDD) and DigiPack GS 1.0 (DPGS) all run under ProDOS 8
while GS/ShrinkIt 1.03 (GSHK) i s a GS/OS application.
I tried to pick three disks which represented a variety of conditions that
could affect compression time. Modulae is a 502K disk, but most of it is
hidden away in invisible blocks (FTA's disks cannot be packed by file for this
reason). The synthLAB disk is a very full disk (797K) with a moderate amount
of files (23 files, 2 folders). It also contains many sound samples which are
very difficult to compress. DBMaster 5 is the shareware 3.5" disk version.
This is an example of a relatively empty disk (448K) but with many small files
(62 files, 4 folders).
An unaccelerated Apple IIGS with 1.75 megabytes of RAM was used for all
tests. To keep disk overhead to a minimum, an 800K RAM disk was created to
hold the archive which was then unpacked back to a blank floppy disk. The
maximum buffer was used wherever possible: DDDeluxe found 567.2K while
DigiPack found 460K.
The charts are ranked by average time needed to pack/unpack a disk. The
Ratio column ranks the packers by compression efficiency. Obviously, the
better the efficiency, the smaller the archive and hence less time is needed
to transfer the archive. Times are givien in min:sec and the number in
parentheses is the resulting archived file size (in blocks).
PACK
Modulae synthLAB DBMaster 5 Time Ratio
________________________________________________________
GSHK-disk | 2:59 (882) | 3:50 (1219) | 2:38 (653) | 1 | 3 |
GSHK-file | --- | 3:54 (1214) | 2:24 (548) | 1 | 1 |
DPGS | 3:06 (897) | 4:44 (1350) | 2:27 (647) | 3 | 5 |
SHK-disk | 3:37 (890) | 4:22 (1219) | 2:42 (667) | 4 | 4 |
DDD | 3:41 (889) | 4:44 (1337) | 2:44 (723) | 5 | 6 |
SHK-file | --- | 4:21 (1213) | 3:44 (598) | 6 | 2 |
|______________|______________|______________|_____|_____|
UNPACK
Modulae synthLAB DBMaster 5 Time
__________________________________________________
SHK-disk | 2:02 | 2:23 | 2:48 | 1 |
DDD | 2:15 | 2:50 | 2:50 | 2 |
GSHK-disk | 2:20 | 2:40 | 2:56 | 3 |
DPGS | 2:23 | 3:42 | 2:06 | 4 |
GSHK-file | ---- | 3:07 | 2:33 | 5 |
SHK-file | ---- | 8:23 | 10:45 | 6 |
|______________|______________|______________|_____|
There is much disk thrashing as ShrinkIt unpacks files since it must
access the root directory track several times per file. This slows down the
unpacking process considerably. GS/ShrinkIt does not have this problem since
it only updates the main directory all at once at the end of the session.
Using a ProDOS 8 disk cache program (such as AE.CACHE or Prosel-8's cache
program) should cut the time at least in half since the drive head does not
need to waste time accessing the main directory.
I also compiled a list of functions and commands available from within
each packer. I chose only those functions which we're not dependent on the
type of packer. Functions such as Checksum Disk (in DDD and DPGS), Sort
Archive (GSHK) or Add Files to Archive (GSHK and SHK) were not included since
they are not meaningful in all four programs. Since GS/ShrinkIt is a desktop
application, it is perhaps misleading to compare it to ProDOS 8 programs.
While functions such as Rename Volume or Type Files are not part of the
application, PD desk accessories can be easily added to the system to provide
all the listed functions plus many more.
If a particular function is available from the packer, a 'Y' is placed
beside the name of the function.
FUNCTIONS GSHK SHK DDD DPGS
Format a volume Y Y Y Y
Erase a volume Y Y - -
Rename a volume - - Y -
Display online volumes Y Y Y Y
Rename files - - Y Y
Copy files - Y Y Y
Delete files Y Y Y Y
View text files - Y Y -
View AW 3.0 WP files - Y - -
Print files - - Y -
Lock/unlock files - - - Y
Change file/auxtypes - - - Y
Catalog a directory Y Y Y Y
Create directory Y Y Y Y
Verify archive - - Y Y
Zero unused disk blocks - Y Y Y
Display archive message(s) Y - Y Y
Edit archive message(s) Y - Y Y
Launch application - - Y -
---------------------------------------------------------
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ | Brian T. Tao | UUCP: torag!pnet91!taob |
/ \ | University of Toronto | INET: taob@pnet91.cts.com |
\ The Apple II / | Scarberia, ON | taob@pro-micol.cts.com |
/ Lives On!! \ |:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::|
\ / | "Computer guru? Someone who got their computer a |
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ | couple of weeks before you did." (Alvin Toffler) |