INTRODUCTION
============

PIBLZW contains two Turbo Pascal v4.0 programs which implement
the Lempel-Zev-Welch (LZW) compression technique:

   PIBCOMPR.PAS  --- Compresses files using LSZ
   PIBDCOMP.PAS  --- Decompress files compressed with PIBCOMPR.PAS

In addition to those two files, PIBLZW.ARC should also contain these
files:

   PIBLZW.DEF    --- Common global declarations for PIBCOMPR/PIBDCOMP
   PIBLSZ.INC    --- Common routines for PIBCOMPR/PIBDCOMP
   README.1ST    --- This file you're reading now.

The LZW technique is well explained in the following reference:

   "A Technique for High Performance Data Compression",
    Terry A. Welch, IEEE Computer,
    vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1984), pp. 8-19.

Variants of LZW compression are used in the popular Unix and VMS
COMPRESS utilities and the MS DOS "ARC" utilities, among others.

PIBCOMPR.PAS and PIBDCOMP.PAS are not meant to be highly efficient
production codes.  These programs are designed to illustrate the
basic LZW technique using Turbo Pascal, following the Welch reference
above. Once you understand the basic algorithm, you should be able
to understand the variable bit size and adaptive compression variants
of LZW which are used by more sophisticated programs.

Also note that these routines as they stand cannot be used to extract
files from MS-DOS ".ARC" files.


RESTRICTIONS ON USE
===================

You may use these programs for any purpose whatsover;
I am contributing them to the public domain.
If you do adapt these routines for use in your own programs,
I'd appreciate your mentioning that.


ADDRESSES FOR ELECTRONIC LETTER BOMBS
=====================================

You may leave me messages on the following BBSs:

      Gene Plantz's BBS                (312) 882 4145
      Northwestern Univerity OPUS BBS  (312) 491 3892

Gene's BBS is registration only ($25 a year) and well worth it.
The Northwestern University BBS is run by my colleague Roger Safian.
You can use the OPUS/FIDONET remote mail/networking facility to send
me messages from another OPUS local to your dialing area.
The net address of Roger's OPUS BBS system is 115/419.

For all three BBS systems, my user name is PHILIP BURNS.

CompuServe users can reach me at:

       72437,62

University users can reach me at:

      PIB@NUACC.BITNET         (BITNET)
      PIB@NUACC.ACNS.NWU.EDU   (ARPANET)

-- Phil "Pib" Burns
   April 30, 1988.