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-
- SYSPACK - Device drivers compressor.
-
- Copyright (C) 1992 by Vadim V. Vlasov, Moscow, Russia.
- All Rights Reserved.
-
-
- What is it for?
- ---------------
-
- SYSPACK is a utility to compress DOS device drivers (as a rule, *.SYS
- files). It may be used to make Your device drivers to eat less space
- on hard disk or seem to be more compact than they really are. I don't
- want to convince anybody that it is of much use, however, compressed
- device drivers may be more convenient in some cases. (If You know a
- good reason to use or distribute compressed drivers instead of
- uncompressed, please let me know.)
-
-
- Principles of operation.
- ------------------------
-
- A SYSPACKed device driver contains decompression code and compressed
- data from original driver. When it is installed and receives from DOS
- initialization request it unpacks the data, restores original device
- header and passes control to the device driver. From that time on
- the device driver behaves identically to its non-packed original.
-
-
- Usage.
- ------
-
- The command line to invoke SYSPACK should contain one or two
- parameters:
-
- >SYSPACK <in-file-name> [<out-file-name>]
-
- If the out-file-name is omitted, the original file is renamed into
- "filename.BAK" and compressed device driver created instead.
- Time stamp for compressed driver is duplicated from original.
- No unpacking option is supported, so don't remove backup copy until
- You ensure that compressed driver works O'K.
-
-
- Error messages.
- ---------------
-
- Besides error messages reporting of some errors with files access there
- are few specific to SYSPACK ones:
-
- Unexpected file size: xxxx
- - the size of original device driver may not exceed 45K-bytes.
-
- Incorrect device header
- - either the input file is not in device driver format or
- it contains more than one driver - both cases are unacceptable.
-
-
- Possible problems.
- ------------------
-
- I don't know a correct way to distinguish amount of memory available
- for device driver. So no check of memory size is performed. It may
- sometimes lead to errors when the packed driver is loaded high. If this
- happens it is likely that non-packed driver also can't be loaded high.
- However, SYSPACKed driver requires a little more memory for
- installation.
-
-
- License.
- --------
-
- Copyright (C) 1992 by Vadim V. Vlasov, Moscow, Russia.
- All Rights Reserved.
-
- - You are free to use SYSPACK for Your personal needs.
-
- - You may also use it for packing device drivers You are distributing
- *if* no fee is charged for device drivers which are distributed in
- packed format (i.e. the drivers are freeware).
-
- - You may copy and distribute SYSPACK for noncommercial use *if*:
-
- no fee is charged for use, copying or distribution of SYSPACK
- program.
-
- it is distributed together with this README file
-
- it is not modified in any way.
-
- In any other case You may contact me to work out license agreement.
-
-
- Note:
- This program is provided AS IS without any warranty, expressed or
- implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular
- purpose.
-
-
- ----------------
- If You have any questions, comments or find out any problems with its
- usage please contact:
-
- Vadim V. Vlasov,
- Inst. for Nuclear Research of the Russian Acad. Sci.,
- 60th October Anniversary prospect, 7a,
- 117312, Moscow, Russia
-
- phone: 7-095-133-6533 (weekday 10h-18h Moscow time)
-
- Internet: vvlasov@inucres.msk.su
-
-
-