UltraCompressor II detailed information. ======================================== AIP-NL (a company located in The Netherlands) has released a datacompressing archiver: UltraCompressor II (UC). This archiver uses completely new archiving and compression technology developed by AIP-NL with help of the University of Utrecht. AIP-NL claims UC compresses 10%-50% better than competing software yet at the same time can update archives up to 10 times faster. UC is "try before you buy" software, allowing you to verify our claims. This document contains 3 sections. [1] UltraCompressor II feature overview. [2] Benchmarks. [3] Common Questions and Answers (January 1994). If you have any questions or remarks please contact AIP-NL: AIP-NL (Ad Infinitum Programs) InterNet desk@aip.nl <== prefered P.O. Box 1432 CompuServe 100115,2303 3430 BK Nieuwegein Phone +31-(0)30-662107 The Netherlands Fax +31-(0)30-616571 ========================================================================= [1] UltraCompressor II feature overview. ========================================================================= GENERAL FEATURES ---------------- * BETTER COMPRESSION On an average 10%, but often above 50%, better compression than competing software. * SPEED Compression is fast and configurable to favour compression speed or archive size. Extraction is very fast. UC is also very fast when it UPDATES an archive, even if this archive is large, stored on a network server or stored on a slow (floppy) disk. * RELIABILITY Archives can optionally be protected against damage, allowing them to recover from most disk-errors without any loss of data. UC always works 'transaction oriented' allowing recovery from most crashes without any loss of data. It has optional double-verification, preventing data loss in case of hardware or software problems. * EASY TO USE (INTEGRATED HELP) UC has integrated help and an, easy to use, integrated configuration tool. Only a few commands are needed to manage archives with UC. UC can automatically deal with ARC, ARJ, LZH, ZIP etc. archives as if they are UC archives. * FULL SUPPORT OF OS/2 2.X EXTENDED ATTRIBUTES OS/2 2.x extended attributes (such as icons, WPS long icon names, WordPerfect 5.2 for OS/2 summary information etc.) can be kept in an archive. They are managed automatically. BUSINESS USE ------------ * SCRIPT FILES A 'script' file can contain a large list of files (e.g. to be compressed). A script file can also be used as a substitute for multiple (complex) commands. Script files can be nested, to allow the construction of 'building blocks'. Script files can be extremely long (multi-megabyte). * CAPABLE OF HEAVY DUTY TASKS There is almost no limit to the amount of files in an archive or to the amount of files processed in a single command. Where some other programs get into trouble with more than 10,000 files, UC can easily handle a much larger number of files. Even a simple PC-XT can (given time) handle this workload. * ERROR HANDLING AND LOGGING UC has advanced error handling and logging. This is especially important when large collections of files are archived from shared (network) disks. In almost all cases UC allows you to solve severe problems and enables you to continue the operation. * STATE OF THE ART ENCRYPTION UltraCrypt (a separate AIP-NL product) can protect your data with heavy duty enhanced-triple-DES (Digital Encryption Standard) encryption. Faster encryption is included as well. * STATE OF THE ART AUTHENTICITY VERIFICATION UltraSeal and UltraSafe, separate AIP-NL products, can help you protect your data against undetected changes (e.g. virus infections or data falsifications). They do not use 'security by obscurity', but they use digital signatures based on Lucas Exponentiation. PROGRAMMERS ----------- * FILE VERSION MANAGEMENT File version management allows you to recover previous 'states' of your projects ("... but this worked two weeks ago, what changed?"). Multiple versions of a file (e.g. the MAY 2 21:33:18 and the MAY 3 02:17:22 version) can be kept in an archive. UC version management is very simple to use. Extracting collections of files from the past is trivial with the 'Dynamic Time Travel' option. * VERY FAST UPDATES UC is very fast in updating large archives while maintaining superior compression and reliability. No complex commands or options are needed for this. * TRIVIAL PATH MANAGEMENT With UC it is very easy to copy any set of files from anywhere on disk to anywhere in the archive and vice versa. BBS SYSOPS ---------- * MULTIMEDIA BANNERS UC allows you to add multimedia banners (text, graphics, sound and music) to an archive, or to a collection of archives. * EASY CONVERSION COMBINED WITH VIRUS SCANNING UC can convert collections of archives of almost any kind with just one simple command. If preferred, UC will scan archive contents for viruses during conversion. * GET RID OF VIRUSES FOREVER The industrial strength authenticity verification software (see 'business use') can help you to get rid of viruses forever by protecting archives against unauthorized changes. * NEEDS ONLY 32KB FREE MEMORY TO RUN UC can be used together with other large programs, perfect for mailers and other (large) programs that need to call UC. ========================================================================= [2] Benchmarks. ========================================================================= This is a reproducible benchmark made by AIP-NL with the help of 'Dean Cooper's comparer program, Version 1.02'. It compares UltraCompressor II with PKZIP 2.04g and ARJ 2.41. Of course, the user can perform the best benchmarks by comparing the tools in 'real life' situations. The test has been performed on a 486/33 PC with MS-DOS, QEMM and Norton Cache (flushed before each test) loaded. | Program Compression mode *------------------------------------------------------------ | UltraCompressor II (UC) -TT (type tight/multimedia) | UltraCompressor II (UC) -TN (type normal) | PKZIP 2.04g (PKZIP) -EX (extra compression) | ARJ 2.41 (ARJ) -JM1 (faster Maximum compression) | Test Description Bytes Files *---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | source Borland C++ 3.1 ..\CRTL\CLIB\*.* (C & ASM) 1,294,460 373 | exe+doc PKZIP 1.10 distribution package 302,272 17 | sound MS-Windows 3.1 *.WAV files 80,304 6 | UPDATE source.uc2/arj/zip on a floppy, then add BGIDEMO.C +40,382 +1 | Test Program Compress time Archive size % Decompress time *---------------------------------------------------------------------- | source UC -TN 56.7 sec 264,599 bytes 100% 29.9 sec | ARJ 36.0 sec 399,111 bytes 151% 29.1 sec | PKZIP 24.0 sec 412,316 bytes 156% 23.5 sec | | exe+doc UC -TN 11.4 sec 114,789 bytes 100% 2.4 sec | PKZIP 5.3 sec 127,753 bytes 113% 1.9 sec | ARJ 6.9 sec 128,188 bytes 113% 3.4 sec | | sound UC -TT 15.5 sec 37,221 bytes 100% 1.3 sec | PKZIP 1.6 sec 41,143 bytes 111% 0.4 sec | ARJ 1.6 sec 41,658 bytes 112% 0.5 sec | | UPDATE UC -TN 14.3 sec 100% | PKZIP 66.5 sec 465% | ARJ 146.3 sec 1023% ========================================================================= [3] Common Questions and Answers (January 1994) ========================================================================= What is the price of UltraCompressor II? UltraCompressor II (tm) single license $43 UltraCrypt + UltraSafe single license $ 7 UltraSeal license $29 Shipping and handling $ 8 25% discount if ordered before April 1994, OR by a sysop. When will UltraCompressor II be available? A 100% functional package is available NOW. Who is UltraCompressor II intended for? Everyone who wants the most cost effective data communication and storage possible. Programmers who want rapid backups and easy to use version management. Sysops who appreciate multimedia banners and REAL authenticity verification. Is there any difference between the "trial" and an official version? When you buy UltraCompressor II it contains a serial number, and comes with a printed manual. Other than these, there are absolutely no differences in the software, or in the contents of the manual. Which operating systems does UltraCompressor II support? UltraCompressor II detects and utilizes DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, the Microsoft Windows family, DesqView and OS/2. Is on-line documentation available? Yes, UltraCompressor II has an integrated, easy to use, HELP tool. Is a configuration tool available? Yes, an easy to use configuration tool is built into UltraCompressor II. Does UltraCompressor II support ZIP, ARJ, ARC etc. archives? Yes, UltraCompressor II supports (extendable) transparent support for 9 archive formats. Does UltraCompressor II support 3rd party tools? Yes, a special interface, the UC2-3PI (UltraCompressor II 3rd party interface), is integrated in UC. For more information please contact us. Does UltraCompressor II support multiple-volume archives? No, this is scheduled for the next version of UltraCompressor II. Please contact us if you want to become a beta tester. Can UltraCompressor II create self extracting archives? No, the special compression architecture, which makes UC compression superior to others, does not allow us to create a small 'SFX' module. Does UltraCompressor II utilize system resources? Yes, UC utilizes operating system, EMS, XMS, network and microprocessor specific features whenever available. UC, of course, does this in a conservative way. How much memory does UltraCompressor II need? 462 kilobytes when no EMS is available, 400 kilobytes when EMS is available. Please note that UltraStealth allows you to run UC if only 32 kilobytes of free memory is available. Can "multimedia banners" be disabled? Yes, a single toggle in the built in configuration tool is sufficient to disable multimedia banners. How much damage can a "damage protected" archive recover from? A damage protected archive can always recover 100% from a single bad sector. For "large" archives about 1% of damage can be fixed completely (e.g. in a 1Mb archive 20 bad sectors can be restored). If complete recovery is not achievable, UC will still recover as much as possible from your data. Please note that damage protection is optimized for bad sectors, it has no disk repair facilities like e.g. Norton Disk Doctor. This document is supplied 'AS IS'. No warranties or commitments of any kind can be derived from this document. UltraCompressor II is a trademark of AIP-NL (Ad Infinitum Programs). Most mentioned brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.