{fh4008080KleinFS - PTW
{fb1000000There are many different forms of compression around nowadays. Most of them use a system called LZW which is named after the creators of the algorithm. It's _not my job to explain this_"Regulars.HDTDT?3" to you but I will say that KleinFS uses it.

As RISC OS 3 comes with the compression module that KleinFS uses it must have some benefit or else no-one would buy it. Well, if anyone's seen Computer Concepts "Compression" KleinFS is similar in use. It installs an extra icon for each filer icon and when you want to save anything compressed, you open up the "compressed" filer window and save it to that. What you see in the KleinFS directory display is normal icons but if you were to open up the normal filer window there would be Squash files which you wouldn't really have an idea of what kind of files they are until you decompress them.

The good thing about KleinFS is that any file compressed using it can be decompressed without needing KleinFS on another computer, well some would say what's the point in KleinFS? If you regularly use Squash to compress your files then this would make your life easier, but for an extra 7 you can buy ArcFS which (in most cases) gives better compression.

At this point I would like to point out that, as KleinFS uses the Squash module to compress files, and the Squash module has bugs which results in corrupt data, does this mean that KleinFS also has these bugs? I haven't been able to test this, but it's a point worth considering.
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While doing tests I found that KleinFS is a bit slow compared to ArcFS, but that's probably because of the Squash module and the fact that KleinFS uses temporary files and ArcFS doesn't. I discovered something which rather shocked me. Here's the results...


A 130,436 byte ProTracker file compressed to:

126,220 bytes using KleinFS

107,884 bytes using ArcFS


A 308,701 byte text file compressed to:

168,502 bytes using KleinFS

178,200 bytes using ArcFS


A 203,056 byte 500x406 Mode 21 sprite compressed to:

94,419 bytes using KleinFS

97,148 bytes using ArcFS


ArcFS was set at 12-bit crunch and as you can see came up trumps when compressing the ProTracker file but flumped on the text and sprite files; shocking!
If you're in the market to buy a compression utility, it would be hard to choose between the both of them. At 18 for KleinFS it's not bad value, but you can still have the compression offered by Squash without the need of kleinFS, but KleinFS does make it easier for the user. ArcFS at 25 which is lightening fast, RISC OS 2 friendly, considered an "industry standard" on the Acorn and gives extremely good compression (on most things) is good value for money.

What can I say, they both have their advantages, they both have their downfalls. In the end, the decision is yours.

Rating: 7/10

Product: KleinFS
Price: 17.95
Availability: All Acorn 32-bit machines with RISC OS 3+
Contact: PTW Software (01329) 281930

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