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- ZIP Files - What They are and How to Use Them
-
- ZIPed files are a group of normal files that are put together in one file
- and compressed in size at the same time. A single ZIP file will usually
- contain an entire package, so you only need to download one file to get all
- you need to run the package. Using ZIP will save considerable disk space
- and download time.
-
- For example, a package might consist of:
-
- documentation PROGRAM.DOC 12,000 bytes
- main program PROGRAM.COM 35,000 bytes
- sample data PROGRAM.DAT 2,000 bytes
- ------
- 49,000 bytes.
-
- All these files could be compressed into PROGRAM.ZIP, which is only about
- 20,000 bytes.
-
- After you download a ZIP file, you must "un-ZIP" the files, which will
- separate the compononents and un-compress them. To do this you must have a
- ZIP utility. PKWare's PKZIP package (found on RBBS-PC systems as PKZ*.EXE)
- can be used for this purpose. If you have PKZIP, and have downloaded
- PROGRAM.ZIP, the command:
-
- PKUNZIP PROGRAM
-
- Will create the component files PROGRAM.DOC, PROGRAM.COM and PROGRAM.DAT
- on your disk.
-
- For more information on ZIP files, refer to the documentation in a ZIP
- utility (PKZIP, for example).
-