Newsgroups: comp.compression
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!sigma
From: sigma@jec302.its.rpi.edu (Kevin J Martin)
Subject: Re: DDJ compression competition FLAME
Message-ID: <zmbgvq.@rpi.edu>
Nntp-Posting-Host: jec302.its.rpi.edu
References: <1991Apr8.160133.22070@kcbbs.gen.nz> <1lbgnl.@rpi.edu>
Date: 8 Apr 91 23:40:33 GMT
Lines: 27

sigma@jec302.its.rpi.edu (Kevin J Martin) writes:
>Peter_Gutmann@kcbbs.gen.nz (Peter Gutmann) writes:
>>#flame on  
>>  A few days ago I finally managed to get hold of the Feb'91 DDJ.  There were 
>>two things about the compression competition that disturbed me:  
>>  
>>1. The test data is known in advance...
>[other valid complaints deleted]
>
>Luckily, the complete listings are apparently available on simtel20 and its
>mirroring sites.  I haven't checked those listings yet, though.

I've looked through that archive now.  The arithmetic coding seems to all
be there.  They also offer the sample files for the compression contest.
What I'd always found fishy about their offer to send them out on floppy
disk was that the files are supposed to be a couple of megabytes each.
Sure enough, what they hadn't made clear before is that the files they send
you are small samples of the sort of thing you might have to compress.
They do NOT apparently send you the actual test data!  But just to confuse
the issue a bit more, their listing of files they supply doesn't match up
with the files they actually supply in this archive!

I kind of wish they wouldn't be so haphazard with this sort of thing.

-- 
Kevin Martin
sigma@rpi.edu
