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01/02/2002...
GeoZIP .8 for Wheels is released.
Werner Weicht has just released GeoZIP.8 for Wheels, you can download it from:

Todd Elliott has released version .6 of GunZIP GEOS on Pasi Ojala's webpage. The German version was translated by Werner Weicht and you can download it from:

Complete source code for GunZIP GEOS in geoProgrammer format can be found there as well. German docs will be on their way soon.
Todd will be adding ZIP archive creation to GunZIP GEOS soon, borrowing the updated PuZIP fixed huffman routines by Pasi Ojala. :)

Gunzip GEOS... some history.
A few weeks ago, there was some discussion concerning the conversion of the popular Wraptor v3 compression program to GEOS. Wraptor is a popular compression/archival format that can handle GEOS files. Unfortunately, it suffered from two major drawbacks; It is a Commodore 64 program, and one must drop out of GEOS in order to use it. Two, it is a non-standard format for use in the Internet, as opposed to the near universal standard of the ZIP/GZIP format.

Anyway, Wraptor v3 sources were unlikely to be found and its author had moved onto other things, probably greener pastures. This is where I suggested we use an universal archival compressed format, the ZIP/GZIP format for our GEOS environment. Pasi 'Albert' Ojala, an European author, had already created GunZIP for both Commodore 64 and 128 modes. His program could decompress nearly every ZIP/GZIP file format imaginable. More importantly, source code files were made available.

With kind permission of Mr Ojala, I looked over the sources and said, 'Hey, I could convert his program for GEOS use.' The actual conversion itself was not very difficult and was quite tedious, actually, as I had to convert the source code files into Concept (geoProgrammer) format as Pasi Ojala used a nonstandard cross-assembler format. Then I removed all code specific to the Commodore OS and 'wrapped' GEOS UI and disk IO code around his GunZIP routines into one nifty program creatively called GunZIP GEOS. :) Ok, I'm still searching for a better name for the program...

All of this took two to three weeks. Not too shabby. I must give credit to Maurice Randall for his expertise and him lending invaluable code to shorten the development cycle. Recently, I've released the first beta version for testing and have received some bug reports. Thankfully, the bugs were not too serious and I hope to fix them easily and quickly.

My future goals is to allow it to create ZIP files with compression quality on par with its modern PC counterparts. My immediate goal is to allow it to dearchive GEOS files, including converting them to GEOS format on the fly. When that happens, Wraptor v3 might as well as go to the code retirement home in the silicon ether.

The source code will be released, so it's possible for a programmer to convert it to MegaPatch3 use.