🚀 go-pugleaf

First of all, I know this has been beaten to death on this group lately but
this posting shows that some people still don't quite have it:

In article <denaumow.721323289@vela> denaumow@vela.acs.oakland.edu (David Naumowicz) writes:
>paiz@Ingres.COM (Hide the beer, the pastor is here!) writes:
>
>>Hi, I have a 286 with 40 megs on the hd. Unfortunately, I am running out of 
>>hd space. Is there a program that will compress or .zip files, but have these 
>>files still be available to be accessed normally? I would prefer if it is
>>share/free ware.
>
>I can think of 2 choices...
>
>Stacker (either software version only or with a card for better
...
>However, I am not sure if it will work on a 286 machine (I don't see
>why not - but you might want to check into it...)

Works fine on a 286.

>DR DOS 6.0 - Also does on-the-fly compression and decompression, but
...
>Both are Commercial Products.
>
>There are many other commercial products out there - but I believe
>these 2 to be the best.
>
>Also, since you are only running a 286, the performance hit for any
>on-the-fly compression program will probably be significant.  I only
>have a 386SX-16, and do not want to deal with the loss in performance.

No.  You will probably see an improvement in disk performance, not a loss.  The
time needed to uncompress 512 bytes of data is less than the time needed to 
read another 512 bytes.

The main problem with a 286 is the conventional memory requirements of these 
programs.  Unless you have a chipset which allows you to use shadow RAM (and
thus load the de/compressor driver high) you may be tight for conventional RAM.

With a 386sx you can load drivers high so you should be OK.

>My suggestion would be, if you can affoard it, to bite the bullet and
>purchase another harddrive.

I have two hard drives and Stacker too.  Never enough disk space...

Harry
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