| |
cba
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 934 |
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 ? |
|
| |
tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1736 |
Are we talking just equal sequence style crunchers here?
Most "early" releases used char packers only (if packed at all).
Things like Compactor/Linker V3.10 and numerous other undated packers.
Search for Compactor/Compacker/Packer/Cruncher/Shorter/Linker...
Maxshorter and The Final Super-Compressor were probably the first sequence crunchers I used.
When was the first card cruncher then?
The earliest card cruncher in csdb is Card Cruncher V4 from may 1987 which is roughly the same time as Matcham Time Cruncher V3.1 was leaked IIRC.
|
| |
cba
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 934 |
I just checked several ABC & 1103 cracks, and most of them seem not be packed / crunched at all.
I think the first Card Cruncher was probably released back in 1986...
|
| |
Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
It started when crackers would start to write copy routines to skip large ateas of empty memory. Then somebody must have had the idea for that packbyte based RLE. He probably didn't know about packing algos, otherwise he had programmed the standard RLE algo. Some old packers also used a packnibble and 12 bits pack range instead of only 8 bit.
|
| |
The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Matcham was the first to create the cruncher. All crunchers evolved from Time Crunch. Galleon studied the style of programming from Matcham and created the Cruel Cruncher. Darkforce studied thoroughly the design of the Time Cruncher 3 and created the Darksqueezer. The original creator of the Kompress Master cartridge may be forgotten. Kompress Master was the most powerful cruncher used in the 80's and considering it was able to defeat Darksqueezer 2.2 and Cruel Cruncher 3.0, it likely is equal to the Exomizer. |
| |
SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
ABC has for sure used packers, and other groups of that time too, use The Compacker 2.0, german packer.
It gives the sysline "SYS(2080) THE FRIENDS.."
ECA linker wasnt really used as packer, although it is RLE.
In early days we linked with ECA, then crunched with compacker 2.0, until we got Timecruncher from Matcham, in 1987. TST was one of the lucky groups, that Matcham made a special version of timecruncher for. it was a status symbol to have displayed TST in the upper corner while uncrunching, coz people knew it was the 'magical' Timecruncher :)
1001 cardcruncher became very popular for those who didnt have the Timecruncher (it was a some have only tool), but cardcruncher was ripped from a cart, and spread like wildfire.
If you spread Timecruncher, it was a death sentence :) |
| |
tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1736 |
Quote: Matcham was the first to create the cruncher. All crunchers evolved from Time Crunch. Galleon studied the style of programming from Matcham and created the Cruel Cruncher. Darkforce studied thoroughly the design of the Time Cruncher 3 and created the Darksqueezer. The original creator of the Kompress Master cartridge may be forgotten. Kompress Master was the most powerful cruncher used in the 80's and considering it was able to defeat Darksqueezer 2.2 and Cruel Cruncher 3.0, it likely is equal to the Exomizer.
This boils down to the definition of 'cruncher' which seems to have varied over time.
If we by this mean LZ77 style equal sequence packing plus (perhaps optionally) entropy coding, then time cruncher probably wasn't the first.
The above mentioned The Final Super-Compressor comes to mind, but there are probably others.
Does anybody know what the packing algorithm of things like File-Compactor III [dutch] and The Sledge Hammer V1.2 is?
Time Cruncher used a streamlined process doing both LZ77 + entropy coding in a single step which was a major leap forward.
Like you say, this became the main strategy used in later crunchers, many improved from a reverse engineered original implementation.
|
| |
Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
I remember using Super Compressor before Timecruncher and the others. (Btw, that (C) 1991 is a reference to TMC 1991 and not the year 1991, Super Compressor was a 1986 tool).
Using the Super Compressor was always an adventure. It would give you a rough estimation how long it will take which usually was in the range of 3 hours and if you needed to pack a file several times it could easily take you a day or two.
|
| |
algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 702 |
Does anyone know if there were any crunchers released which used other methods of compression (apart from the usual sequence/rle/huffman and the entropy mentioned in this forum subject? |
| |
chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11164 |
probably every method that exists (often without the authors knowing what exact method it is) |
| |
Richard
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 620 |
Wasn't Sledgehammer V1.2 originally called Sledger? |
| |
tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1736 |
Quote: Wasn't Sledgehammer V1.2 originally called Sledger?
There's mentions of 1001 inside Sledger V1.0 so I guess no. ($113c)
This is also based on Sledgehammer IIRC: MT Crunch VII. |
| |
The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Within texts of 1980s releases from the Beastie Boys mostly, I remember something about Matcham being part of The Stand. There is no entry here for The Stand. Was this a group or some other form of expression? |
| |
tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1736 |
Quote: Within texts of 1980s releases from the Beastie Boys mostly, I remember something about Matcham being part of The Stand. There is no entry here for The Stand. Was this a group or some other form of expression?
Matcham Time Cruncher III [The Stand] says in the intro scroller:
"TIME CRUNCHER III - SPECIAL VERSION FOR THE STAND!!!"
From the text it seems that The Stand's real name is Stig which is a common Norwegian (and Swedish) first name.
|
| |
SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Matcham was in Network, nothing else.. |
| |
chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11164 |
gotta love the uninformed BS someone wrote into his entry: "Matcham is the grandfather and creator of the idea behind the programming within all crunchers we know in the world today. He realized the possibility of sequence crunching. He programmed this idea into actuality. He is the engineer of the original Time Crunch. His creation evolved into many powerful crunchers on the C=64 and eventually to the modern compression systems used in PC and Macintosh computers"
lol |
| |
Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
Matcham invented "crunching"? Then why is LZ77 called LZ -> 77 <-?
|
| |
ΛΛdZ
Registered: Jul 2005
Posts: 153 |
Packer 64 seems to be from 1984.
Packer 64
Maybe this was one of the first public packers ?
|
| |
A Life in Hell
Account closed
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 204 |
Quote: Matcham invented "crunching"? Then why is LZ77 called LZ -> 77 <-?
Not to mention that his name is ostensibly neither Lempil nor Ziv ;) |
| |
tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1736 |
Quote: Packer 64 seems to be from 1984.
Packer 64
Maybe this was one of the first public packers ?
This program only compresses basic programs. It does so by removing spaces and utilizing the max line length. |
| |
tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1736 |
Quote: Not to mention that his name is ostensibly neither Lempil nor Ziv ;)
Seriously though, does anybody know which paper first described the use of bit compressed offset/length pairs?
The most common usage seems to be LZ77 with entropy coding in separate steps IIRC. |
| |
cba
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 934 |
Check : http://www.ffd2.com/fridge/chacking/c=hacking16.txt
"Milestones of C64 Data Compression"
|
| |
Mace
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 1799 |
I once had a go at some Huffmann algo myself, but failed miserably when trying to think of a way to store the 'tree' in the memory of the C64 :) |
| |
yago
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 332 |
morse-code can be considered one of the first packers
|
| |
SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Morse code doesnt pack, it extends.
S (1 char) -> ... (3 chars) |
| |
Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
No it converts a 26 character alphabet into a 3 character alphabet with character length depending on how often the letter is used.
|
| |
tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1736 |
That's quite similar to Huffman with a static tree when you think about it. :) |
| |
Catweazle
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2021
Posts: 8 |
I analyzed and heavily improved the matcham time-cruncher V4 or V5 for my own demos and released it as the "News-Packer" under the fun pseudo name "Sado-Maso-Marketing" at this time Catweazle/Alcoholics.
The News-Packer could show the disc contents by pressing the $ sign to find the names, had an incredible amount of different decruncing effects and some new and improved crunch modes with much better efficiency or much better speed and you could compress files with nearly full ram usage - also the shadowed RAM.
This cruncher was far beyond of its time using a very special way of run-length encoding with some extraordinary ideas and technology never heard and seen before and this motivated myself to learn everything about compression and into creating my own crunchers with special speed-up tables later on Amiga and PC. I also developed different hyperspeed technologies (some were much quicker and more efficient than quick hashing with much better memory usage!) for compression. From time to time I also nowadays read of new technologies and try them out for comparison reasons just for fun. Cruncher Tech and encryption/decryption is still a very interesting hobby for me.
I´m rather sure the next step afterwards impressing me was the cruel cruncher. But I did never dive into its code working on my own algorithms. Perhaps someone knows more about how it worked in detail? |
| |
chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11164 |
News Packer V1.0? Are you sure this isnt a textimprovement of Timercruncher v4? :) |
| |
Zyron
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2381 |
*brings the popcorn* |
| |
iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3142 |
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. |
| |
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 |
| |
iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3142 |
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. |
| |
Silver Dream !
Registered: Nov 2005
Posts: 108 |
Any comments on this one
Charblaster 2
and the claim it makes? |
| |
Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2870 |
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 |
| |
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... |
| |
Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2870 |
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. |
| |
iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3142 |
what's ZX0? |
| |
Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2870 |
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. |
| |
Silver Dream !
Registered: Nov 2005
Posts: 108 |
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% |
