PKZIP

History

When ZIP took over as most popular compression format on PCs almost overnight in 1989 it created a problem for end users of other computer systems and network operators as even though the file format had a supposedly open specification the program itself was only available as an executable for DOS based machines. The company behind the ARC compressor and format that had for years been the most popular archive format on PCs had made available copyrighted but open source code for the express purpose of creating unarchivers for other operating systems.

This meant that end users that were accustomed to downloading PC archive files from BBSs and file archives on the internet suddenly found they could not decompress those files but prior to that you could download an ARC file and have an ARC decompressor for your system. Similarly system administrators found themselves in a pickle as while most BBS systems were DOS or OS/2 based and could run the PKZIP program almost no PC based servers used DOS as the base operating system, most servers used either Novell Netware or a UNIX derived system, and admins were suddenly flooded with ZIP files that they could not examine unless they had a direct access to a DOS machine.