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cba
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 932 |
History of Crunchers & Packers
I am very curious what crackers from back in the day used for crunching or packing their releases.
Self made ones I can only assume. Are any of them available here at csdb ?
I am talking about the very first ones like :
1103
ABC Crackings
Mr.Z
The period before 1986 , so before the Card Cruncher from the 1001 crew
Anyone here who knows more about this ? |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
actually an hack of Matcham Time Cruncher V3.1
the decruncher code is altered to use different zp locations ($61-64 instead of $a6-a9) and of course it has an improved user interface, but that's it. |
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Catweazle
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2021
Posts: 8 |
iAN CooG & Groepaz you´re wrong.
I changed the cruncher tables and some code and added the directory loader, auto saver and decrunch effects. You have to use the cruncher+ mode - that´s the improved version offering more crunch modes and the new algorithms (6 instead of 4) otherwise you´re using the untouched original version with additional decruncher effects only. It helps to read the text.
It looks like it´s really based on Timecruncher 3.1 or even lower, but it´s still superior also to newer versions.
I just made a quick crunch test with Mercenary 2 on hyper64.
Original: 53041 bytes
Time Cruncher V5 max (8): 36546 (claiming to be better than all previous versions)
Matcham (assume V3.1) org max (4): 39759
News Packer max (6): 35779
So it was and still is definately better than the original it´s created from.
Otherwise I think the news cruncher has never been relevant to anybody because I never read someone is using it =8-D |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
I stand corrected then, there is a significant improvement in size reduction with the added modes 5 & 6, at the cost of being 2x - if not more - slower.
I was wrongly assuming there was no difference if the decruncher code was the same.
You have to admit that it's hard to believe there are actual real improved packers or any other tool when 99% of the times they consist only of hacked texts and few nops here and there.
Happy to be proved wrong once in a while ;P
Btw, I found and still find a lot of files with the sysline
sys2072 !! NEWS !!
so it was actually well spread. |
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Silver Dream !
Registered: Nov 2005
Posts: 107 |
Any comments on this one
Charblaster 2
and the claim it makes? |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2839 |
Quoting Silver Dream !Any comments on this one
Charblaster 2
and the claim it makes? Claim may have been true at the time of release, but there's at least one shorter depack routine from a few years later: Plush Packer |
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Catweazle
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2021
Posts: 8 |
I created on Amiga a special but incedible simple 1st pass that not only sped up the overall crunch time, but also improved the 2nd passes in most cases very good in efficiency/reduction and speed. It would be interesting how much it could deliver nowadays on C64 code... |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2839 |
Quoting CatweazleIt would be interesting how much it could deliver nowadays on C64 code... Current benchmarks are Exomizer and ZX0, both coming out pretty much on par, on average, in terms of crunchiness. ZX0 is a lot faster with decrunching, though. Plus the decruncher is very compact. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
what's ZX0? |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2839 |
Quoting iAN CooGwhat's ZX0? Cruncher. :D Recent invention from early 2021.
Quote:ZX0 is an optimal data compressor for a custom LZ77/LZSS based compression format, that provides a tradeoff between high compression ratio, and extremely simple fast decompression. Therefore it's especially appropriate for low-end platforms, including 8-bit computers like the ZX Spectrum. Became default and gold standard in Bitfire V1.0-Alpha (https://github.com/bboxy/bitfire/) and next version of my IRQ loader. Original Z80 code can be found here, forum discussions there. Note that Bitbreaker has changed some details in the bitstream format to make it better-suited for 6502, and soci made crunching a lot swifter. |
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Silver Dream !
Registered: Nov 2005
Posts: 107 |
Quoting KrillCurrent benchmarks are Exomizer and ZX0, both coming out pretty much on par, on average, in terms of crunchiness. I might have specific set of data files but all of them ended up smaller when crunched with exomizer. The difference is about 5-6% on small files. On a long one the difference exceeded 20-23% |
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