From www.volta.net
PKZip's Author Dies
May 12 2000
You might use his software every day, but never know his name. The man who
developed one of the most popular pieces of PC software has died at the age
of 37. Phillip W. Katz died last month of complications from chronic
alcoholism in Milwaulkee. In 1986 he came up with the idea of PKZip (Phil
Katz zip), the file compression software which is now used around the world.
It made communication between computers faster, dependable and less
expensive. PKZIP not only introduced the .ZIP file format, it also brought a
reliable standard among the plethora of compression utilities on the market
in the late 1980s. Many Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) quickly switched to
the .ZIP file format virtually overnight. Phil's company, PKWARE
(www.pkware.come), also put the .ZIP file format specification and .ZIP file
extension name in the public domain, further helping its widespread
adoption.
Fergal Moran
--
WASP Technologies
http://www.wasptech.com
Wireless Application Solutions Provider
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