[ICUAP9.DOC]
[Harold V. McIntosh, 24 July 1984]

ICUAP9 responds to the SIG/M Disk Editor's column in the June, 1984 issue of
the ACG/NJ Newsletter, which requested a synthesis of USQ.COM and FIND.COM.
In the process of trying to meet this challenge, we became aware of some of
the squeezing and unsqueezing programs in existence, and of the inadequacy
of our resources both in the library and in our software collection.

Much more than a FIND which will search the SIG/M catalogue volume is needed.
The whole collection ought to be indexed, according to author, subject matter,
date of issue, and other things. Not only that, but several years collections
of Byte magazine, Dr. Dobb's Journal and others need to be indexed. It is
frustrating to remember that you think you read an article about something
long ago when you weren't particularly interested in it.

For the moment, we have studied the subject of squeezing and unsqueezing 
sufficiently to think that we have an unsqueezing program which can be
incorporated into quite a wide variety of other programs, even though it
is clear that the subject of squeezing files is susceptible of much further
development. To illustrate the point, we have given both FIND and HELP this
treatment, and would think of extending it to some editors and assemblers
if they weren't so proprietary.

This .DOC file is much shorter than our usual custom because the majority
of the material that it would contain has been incorporated into ICUAP9.HQP.
That is a squeezed HELP file which illustrates the feasibility of working
with this class of files. Squeezing usually reduces files to only about
67% of their former volume. Even so a system is likely to have quite a few
HELP files lying about taking up valuable disk space. Thus there is a good
motive behind any reduction in their volume that can be achieved.

ICUAP9 contains the following programs in various manifestations:

		UNSQ	The fundamental unsqueezing program
		TYSQ	Type squeezed programs, even if .COM files
		FYNDE	Search for keywords through a family of files
		HJELP	On-line examination of HELP files

All four programs are offered for both the Intel 8080 and the Intel 8086.
Some have been squeezed; this is redundant but allows the disk to be self-
contained, because there is a variety of programs present on which each of
the others can be tested. UNSQ in particular shows how short this program
can be when it is written in assembly language.

[end]
