 What are Compressed Files?
 --------------------------
   "Compressed" files, at least here in the BBS world, are actually files
which contain within themselves one or more files which are usually compressed.
Compressed files (or library files) are very useful since they make it
easy to both download a lot of files with little effort and the minimize
the time required to download the files, particularly since the art of
file compression has been refined by the folk competing in this field.

   Competing, you say?  Yep.  There are currently four major competitors
(that we know of) in the BBS world.  Each has a set of utilities which
produce and manipulate files identifiable by their "extensions" -- the
".xxx" part of their file name.  For instance, in the filename "STUFF.ARC",
the extension is "ARC", and that is how you (and ^variantname) identify
the file.  ^variantname provides support for peeking into and extracting
from all of these formats.

   So who are the competitors and their products?  Briefly, and with no
prejudice or bias ...

   ARC is the oldest of the compress utilities still in use.  Produced by
SEA, it is a ShareWare product, and ARC-produced files can be identified
by their extension of "ARC".

   The PKZIP set of utilities is probably the newest of compress utilities,
but is widespread.  Produced by PKWARE, it, too, is a ShareWare product and
PKZIP-produced files can be identified by their extension of "ZIP".

   The ZOO compressor comes from Rahul Dhesi and is public domain.  Files
produced by ZOO have the extension "ZOO".

   The Lharc compressor was written by Haruyasu Yoshizaki and is another
public domain offering.  Files produced with Lharc have the extension
"LZH".  Lharc is the slowest of the utilities, but is generally the most
efficient in terms of compressed file size.  However, it has some compatability
problems between computers (for example, a LZH file produced on an Amiga
sometimes cannot be selectively decompressed on a PClone -- it'll be an
all or none operation).  A newer form of LZH compression is LHA.  To
^variantname, both LHA and LZH are the same but different.  Both have the
same basic structure, but LHA is a better compression.


 %COMPCOMM How to utilize compressed files on ^nodetitle.
 %ADVANCED Back to the advanced commands help menu.
 %HELPOPT Get a list of all help files in the system.
 %MAINHELP First level of help system.

