4 ms·
A compressed file that is only one byte long can only represent maximally 256 different uncompressed files. Signed, a kid in the 90s who downloaded some "wavel
by philsnow 1y ago
A compressed file that is only one byte long can only represent maximally 256 different uncompressed files.
Signed, a kid in the 90s who downloaded some "wavelet compression" program from a BBS because it promised to compress all his WaReZ even more so he could then fit moar on his disk. He ran the compressor and hey golly that 500MB ISO fit into only 10MB of disk now! He found out later (after a defrag) that the "compressor" was just hiding data in unused disk sectors and storing references to them. He then learned about Shannon entropy from comp.compression.research and was enlightened.
- marcusf 1y agoman, a comment that brings back memories. you and me both.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- david422 1y ago> He found out later (after a defrag) that the "compressor" was just hiding data in unused disk sectors and storing references to them So you could access the files until you wrote more data to disk?
- thehappypm 1y agoStrange to think that is approach would actually work pretty damn well for most people because most people aren’t using therefore hard drive space
- jabl 1y agoHa ha, that compressor is some evil genius. Brings to mind this 30+ year old IOCCC entry for compressing C code by storing the code in the file names. https://www.ioccc.org/1993/lmfjyh/index.html https://www.ioccc.org/1993/lmfjyh/index.html