From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263254AbTJPXDX (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Oct 2003 19:03:23 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263256AbTJPXDX (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Oct 2003 19:03:23 -0400 Received: from waste.org ([209.173.204.2]:13505 "EHLO waste.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263254AbTJPXDV (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Oct 2003 19:03:21 -0400 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 18:03:02 -0500 From: Matt Mackall To: linux-kernel Cc: "Richard B. Johnson" Subject: RLE (was Re: Transparent compression in the FS) Message-ID: <20031016230302.GV5725@waste.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 01:19:09PM -0400, Richard B. Johnson wrote: > JMODEM was done in 1989 as stated. RLE was invented my ME in 1967 > and was first used for a digital telemetry link between the Haystack > research facility in Groton, Mass. and MIT's main campus. I was a > technician there during my senior year at Northeastern. Whether or > not it was patented by others is immaterial. S.W. Golomb. Run-length encoding. IEEE Trans. on Information Theory, 12(3), July 1966. I'm sure there are earlier instances, but this is one that is commonly cited. I expect we can find coding theory stuff back to the at least the mid-40s with the formalization of regular expression theory and Kleene closures. -- Matt Mackall : http://www.selenic.com : Linux development and consulting