Phil Katz, shown in 1994, holds a computer disk containing compression software made by his company, PKWare Inc. Phillip Walter Katz (November 3, 1962 – April 14, 2000), better known as Phil Katz, was a computer programmer best-known as the author of PKZIP, a program for compressing files which ran under the PC operating system DOS. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (456x631, 51 KB) Summary Promotional image from PKWARE, used under fair use : http://en. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (456x631, 51 KB) Summary Promotional image from PKWARE, used under fair use : http://en. ...
is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
April 14 is the 104th day of the year (105th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 261 days remaining. ...
2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
In computing, a programmer is someone who does computer programming and develops computer software. ...
PKZIP is an archiving tool originally written by the late Phil Katz, and marketed by his company PKWARE, Inc. ...
In computer science and information theory, data compression or source coding is the process of encoding information using fewer bits (or other information-bearing units) than an unencoded representation would use through use of specific encoding schemes. ...
A personal computer (PC) is a computer whose price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals. ...
It has been suggested that Maintenance OS be merged into this article or section. ...
Instructions on how to use the directory command. ...
Early life
Phil Katz received a bachelor's degree in computer science from UW-Milwaukee. Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ...
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (also known as UW-Milwaukee, UWM or Milwaukee) is a public research university located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ...
His first compression product was released in the mid-1980s with a program called PKARC. PKARC was compatible with the then-popular ARC program written by Thom Henderson, founder of SEA System Enhancement Associates. ARC was written in C, with the source code available on SEA's BBS. PKARC, written partially in assembly language, was much faster (back then, compilers were not as good at optimization as they are today). Katz had a special flair for optimizing code. Besides writing critical code in assembly language, he would write C code to perform the same task in several different ways and then examine the compiler output to see which produced the most efficient assembly code. PKARC's speed quickly made it more popular than the earlier program. A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users. ...
See the terminology section, below, regarding inconsistent use of the terms assembly and assembler. ...
In computing, optimization is the process of modifying a system to make some aspect of it work more efficiently or use fewer resources. ...
He initially released only PKXARC, an extraction program, as freeware. Its much greater speed caused it to spread like wildfire throughout the BBS community. Strong positive feedback and encouragement from the community caused Katz to first add a compression program, PKARC, and then to make his software shareware. Ward Christensen and the computer that ran one of the first public Bulletin Board Systems, CBBS from BBS: The Documentary “BBS†redirects here. ...
PKARC, in addition to duplicating the compression techniques used in ARC, added a additional algorithm, which produced smaller files. However, these files still used the file extension ".ARC". This lead to the situation where files which appeared to be created by SEA's ARC could not be read by that program. System Enhancement Associates's Henderson considered this an apropriation of his product's trademarked name, and sued Katz. Katz withdrew PKARC from the market, and instead released PKPAK, which was similar in all but name, and the file extension used.
System Enhancement Associates soon discovered that Katz had copied significant amounts of the copyrighted source code distributed with ARC. They sued for trademark violation and copyright infringement, and won: Katz was forced to change the program.[1] According to expert witnesses hired by SEA, Katz had copied ARC's source code so extensively that even identical comments and spelling errors were found. The BBS community, arguably due to prompting from Katz, took the suit as an example of a large, faceless corporation crushing the little-guy — even though both companies were family businesses with fewer than 5 or so people. SEA's founder, Thom Henderson, has said that users who spoke to him at the time "didn't care" if PKARC misappropriated his copyrights and trademark; they just wanted to use the fastest software to compress and uncompress files.[2]
PKZIP Katz quickly replaced PKARC with PKPAK and, soon after that, with the new and completely re-written PKZIP, released as shareware, which compressed both better and faster than ARC. Katz kept the new ZIP file format open. As a result, it soon became a standard for file compression across many platforms. PKZIP is an archiving tool originally written by the late Phil Katz, and marketed by his company PKWARE, Inc. ...
Look up shareware in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
The ZIP file format is the most widely-used compressed file format in the IBM PC world. ...
This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ...
PKZIP made Katz one of the most well known shareware authors of all time. Although his company PKWARE became a multimillion dollar company, Katz hired people he trusted to run the company and continued writing software himself.
Katz was adamantly opposed to Microsoft Windows in the early 90s. This led to PKWARE missing out on the opportunity to be the first to bring PKZIP to the platform. Windows redirects here. ...
Death Katz battled alcoholism for years. His friends tried to help him with his addiction, but they were rebuffed, and he gradually shut them out completely. He was arrested several times for driving under the influence, and later in his life, spent more time in cheap motels and strip clubs than his own home.[3] Alcoholism is the consumption of, or preoccupation with, alcoholic beverages to the extent that this behavior interferes with the drinkers normal personal, family, social, or work life, and may lead to physical or mental harm. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
Katz was found dead in a hotel room with an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps in his hand on April 14, 2000 at the age of 37. A coroner's report stated his death was a result of acute pancreatic bleeding caused by chronic alcoholism. [1] Schnapps is a type of distilled beverage. ...
April 14 is the 104th day of the year (105th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 261 days remaining. ...
2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Acute pancreatitis is rapidly-onset inflammation of the pancreas. ...
References - ^ "Famed software pioneer dies at 37", Journal Sentinel, April 22, 2000. Retrieved on 2007-05-14. “Phillip W. Katz, the eccentric inventor of computer file-compression software used around the world, and a pioneer in the concept of shareware, is dead at age 37. The cause of death was complications from chronic alcoholism, according to medical examiner's records. Katz came onto the computer scene when communication was expensive and slow. His program, PKZip, played a large role in making Internet communication faster, said a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee computer science”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ...
is the 112th day of the year (113th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...
May 14 is the 134th day of the year (135th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
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