WEB Technologies' Amazing Compression?
(see "Instant Gigabytes," June 1992, page 45)
In an announcement that sounded too good to be true, WEB Technologies (Smyrna, GA) claimed it had developed a compression algorithm that could squeeze almost any amount of data to less than 1024 bytes. The company claimed that its DataFiles/16 program could compress files larger than 64 KB to about one-sixteenth their original size. Skeptics said what WEB claimed was impossible, yet BYTE received numerous inquiries from readers, many of whom said they felt obliged to investigate WEB's claims, however implausible.
BYTE contacted WEB for a beta version of the software so that we could evaluate it. WEB at first declined to give us the beta, but we said we couldn't write a story about the product without one. WEB relented and sen
t us the beta version, which we tested and wrote about in the June 1992 issue.
Not surprisingly, the beta version of DataFiles/16 that reporter Russ Schnapp tested didn't work. DataFiles/16 compressed files, but when decompressed, those files bore no resemblance to their originals. WEB said it would send us a version of the program that worked, but we never received it.
When we attempted to follow up on the story about three months later, the company's phone had been disconnected. Attempts to reach company officers were also unsuccessful. WEB appears to have compressed itself right off the computing radar screen.
Whatever Happened To...
