Speed Benchmarks for ARC file utility software (9/21/1986)

Out of curiosity, I decided to test the speed and efficiency of
the various ARC programs available. There are three sets of ARC
software tools available,

ARC 5.12 from the originator of this product, System Enhancement
Associates.

ARCA  1.22 from Wayne Chin/Vernon Buerg.

PKARC 1.0 and 1.1 from Phil Katz.

Two tests were run, one to ARC a 687,708 ASCII file. The second
test ARCed 32 ASCII files (516,767 bytes).

Speed and ARC file size shown below.
All times in seconds.

                Time/687kb Size/687kb   Time/32   Size/32

ARC 5.12         328         330,794      291      259,308

ARCA 1.22         69         326,623       59      257,945

PKARC 1.0         75         330,794       82      259,308

PKARC 1.1         67         331,727       50      254,670

Extracting files from ARC files also presents a number of
choices. Each of the above products has an extract function. The
Original ARC 5.12 had the function built in. Katz and Chin/Buerg
provide separate programs to extract files.

All times in seconds.

                Time/687kb    Time/32

ARC 5.12           161         139

ARCE 2.06           39          43

PKXARC 3.1          32          40

PKXARC 3.2          31          38

Phil Katz and Vern Buerg both have long standing reputations as
superb programmers and generous contributors to Shareware and
Public Domain software. Although Phil Katz seems to be ahead at
the moment in the speed department, most users won't notice the
differences. In addition, the folks over at System Enhancements
are rumored to be readying their own major upgrade of their
original ARC software.

In addition, there are other differences in use and features
between the three groups of ARC software.

Lastly, please send all these guys the  requested contributions
for their efforts. They certainly deserve it.

                                           Jim Dunnigan
                                           MCI Mail JDUNNIGAN