3 ms·

But AMB doesn't have such resources nor filters at all. Also the file length limit of 64KB is not as small as it sounds; some implementations will have to only

But AMB doesn't have such resources nor filters at all. Also the file length limit of 64KB is not as small as it sounds; some implementations will have to only read one screenful a time (plus a bit of buffers) to save the working memory.

PaulHoule 6y ago
And neither did the "ar" file that the linker used on the original Unix. Before there was ZIP there was ARC, and before ARC came to the IBM PC, there were LBR (a "tar" kind of format) and the SQ compressor on CP/M (I don't know what possesed me to write a SQ decoder in BASIC instead of going straight to macro assembler) "Containers of containers (... of containers)" is a general architecture for file formats. The 64k limit makes it a lot easier to implement an an 8-bit computer in that you can use 16-bit pointers into one of the documents, going to 24-bit or 32-bit pointers would be a hassle but BASIC programmers might use floats which would work OK until they don't.