[comp.compression] ARJ 2.0

chuangss@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Shyne Song Chuang) (04/20/91)

Hi there,

Just wanted to let you guys know that there's a new version of ARJ that's
out. Version 2 is *supposed* to compress as well as LHA 2.1x (gives perhaps
the best compression around) AND is supposed to compress as fast as PKZIP!
If any of you know an ftp site where it can be found, please mention it.
I got my copy of ARJ 2.0 from Delphi.

As usual, I haven't had time to test ARJ, so correct me if I'm wrong... But
that's what I read in the .doc file.


Cheers,
Kevin

c60b-1eq@e260-1g.berkeley.edu (Noam Mendelson) (04/20/91)

In article <1991Apr19.200436.14936@en.ecn.purdue.edu> chuangss@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Shyne Song Chuang) writes:
>Hi there,
>Just wanted to let you guys know that there's a new version of ARJ that's
>out. Version 2 is *supposed* to compress as well as LHA 2.1x (gives perhaps
>the best compression around) AND is supposed to compress as fast as PKZIP!
>If any of you know an ftp site where it can be found, please mention it.
>I got my copy of ARJ 2.0 from Delphi.
>As usual, I haven't had time to test ARJ, so correct me if I'm wrong... But
>that's what I read in the .doc file.

ARJ 2.00 is available on simtel under pd1:<msdos.arc-lbr>arj200.exe.
I ran some crude tests using 11 binary files and 11 text files.  Here
are my results.  All times in seconds of course ;-)

Binary data - 11 misc. EXE files (358,783 bytes).

           Compression time    Compressed size    Decompression time
LHa 2.12       1:44.89            244,226              42.74
ARJ 2.00       1:27.74            243,498              44.50
PKZIP 1.1      1:00.05            251,433              22.25

Text data - 11 misc straight ASCII files (247,669 bytes).

           Compression time    Compressed size    Decompression time
LHa 2.12       1:15.98             88,193              24.12
ARJ 2.00       1:00.54             85,859              26.37
PKZIP 1.1        48.84             92,057              17.91

Considering ARJ 1.10 sucked (flames >/dev/null), this is a tremendous
improvement.  Phil Katz is the only one that hasn't released a new
version of ZIP, but I'm sure that's in the works.

-- 
+==========================================================================+
| Noam Mendelson   ..!ucbvax!web!c60b-1eq       | "I haven't lost my mind, |
| c60b-1eq@web.Berkeley.EDU                     |  it's backed up on tape  |
| University of California at Berkeley          |  somewhere."             |

ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (04/21/91)

In article <1991Apr19.200436.14936@en.ecn.purdue.edu> chuangss@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Shyne Song Chuang) writes:
:
>If any of you know an ftp site where it can be found, please mention it.
>I got my copy of ARJ 2.0 from Delphi.
:

All the major archivers can be found at garbo.uwasa.fi, Simtel20,
and many other ftp sites.  Ours are in the /pc/arcers directory. 
Arj's file name is arj200.exe.

While we are at it.  Are you aware of the archie service for finding
the ftp locations of files.  If not, you can (among other sources)
find the necessary pointers in /pc/ts/tsfa19b.arc Frequently Asked
Questions collection.  (Archie is very handy, the only problem being
the time lag.)

If you don't know how to go about getting files from garbo.uwasa.fi,
you are welcome to email me for the prerecorded instructions.

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun

rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) (04/24/91)

In article <1991Apr19.200436.14936@en.ecn.purdue.edu> chuangss@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Shyne Song Chuang) writes:
>Hi there,
>
>Just wanted to let you guys know that there's a new version of ARJ that's
>out. Version 2 is *supposed* to compress as well as LHA 2.1x (gives perhaps
>the best compression around) AND is supposed to compress as fast as PKZIP!
>If any of you know an ftp site where it can be found, please mention it.
>I got my copy of ARJ 2.0 from Delphi.
>
>As usual, I haven't had time to test ARJ, so correct me if I'm wrong... But
>that's what I read in the .doc file.

As usual, the speed claims are exagerated, but it is an impressive improvement.
ARJ 2.0 blows LHarc 2.12 out of the water.  It packs about the same, and is
much faster (hope that's not too technical).  It is still slower than PKZIP,
but he's really speeded it up.  Instead of taking 2-3 times as long as the ZIP
version, it takes about a minute longer than ZIP does to compress a file that
takes ZIP 3 minutes.

Really vague, I know.  I've got all the results at home, I'll bring them in and
type them up.