GifBlastb

Short:        Crunches GIF-pictures by up to 30%
Uploader:     jawil aid no
Type:         gfx/misc
Architecture: m68k-amigaos

                          GifBlast for The Amiga

With  the  arrival  of  the AGA chip set, GIF is rapidly becoming a popular
file  format  on  the  Amiga.   So naturally, it is important to be able to
archive  these  files  as  efficiently  as  possible.   And  where raw file
compression  is  concearned,  nothing  comes  close  to  GifBlast  (~30% on
average).

While  browsing  through  the days load of new files on my favourite BBS, I
stumbled  into the source code for this popular PC program, so I decided to
prepare a version for the Amiga.  This is the result.  Finally, Amiga users
can enjoy the benefits of loss-less GIF compression!

There  are  two  versions  enclosed  in  this archive.  One for plain 68000
machines,  and  one  for those with more processor power (68020 or higher).
You  can  get an overview of the syntax for GifBlast by entering "GifBlast"
on  its own.  As of yet there is no GUI frontend for the program, nor is it
particulary useful for WB users.

Please  note that I make no representations whatsoever, as to the usability
of  these executables, as I did not write any of the source code.  I simply
compiled  the  existing source program with my own C compiler, to obtain an
Amiga  executable.   However,  I  have  tested  GifBlast  on my own [68040]
system, and it performs very well.

Oh,  one final note:  Arm yourself with a lot of patience.  Unless you have
at  least  a  030  running  at  a  decent  speed, you can expect some quite
staggering compression and decompression times.  GifBlast isn't exactly the
worlds fastest program :-)

Happy crunching!

(Sysops,  please  leave this message in the archive, so that new users will
know the background of the Amiga version of GifBlast)

-Michael Berg, 2:230/816.8@FidoNet