Developers Created a Compression Algorithm in the 1970s By Adding a Spell Checker to a Unix System Still Used Today/technologies/ai-machine-learning/b/blog/posts/developers-created-a-compression-algorithm-in-the-1970s-by-adding-a-spell-checker-to-a-unix-system-still-used-todayA PDP-11 machine. )Image Credit: Wikipedia ) Everyone&rsquo;s familiar with spellchecking, a handy feature in browsers, text editors, and other software. The tool proved extremely challenging to install as systems lacked sufficient memory to support ...en-USTelligent Community 12RE: Developers Created a Compression Algorithm in the 1970s By Adding a Spell Checker to a Unix System Still Used Todayhttps://community.element14.com/technologies/ai-machine-learning/b/blog/posts/developers-created-a-compression-algorithm-in-the-1970s-by-adding-a-spell-checker-to-a-unix-system-still-used-todaySat, 10 May 2025 18:54:53 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:f9b8cf98-7a0a-41cd-84e6-6749381ae3fcDAB0<p>The first computer I ever used was a PDP-11.</p> <p>I did a lot of cool programs in assembly language.</p> <p>Compared to what I have now, it was very slow with each instruction taking microseconds.</p><img src="https://community.element14.com/aggbug?PostID=28878&AppID=217&AppType=Weblog&ContentType=0" width="1" height="1">RE: Developers Created a Compression Algorithm in the 1970s By Adding a Spell Checker to a Unix System Still Used Todayhttps://community.element14.com/technologies/ai-machine-learning/b/blog/posts/developers-created-a-compression-algorithm-in-the-1970s-by-adding-a-spell-checker-to-a-unix-system-still-used-todayWed, 07 May 2025 08:18:09 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:f9b8cf98-7a0a-41cd-84e6-6749381ae3fcmichaelkellett0<p><em>You can create a 256 kB text file with 260,000 characters, compressing it via a compressor and the Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm to shrink the size to 257 bytes.</em></p> <p>I do not believe that lossless compression of a normal text file by a factor of 1020 has ever been (or ever will be) demonstrated.</p> <p>Please cite your source for this assertion.</p> <p>(Are you sure that you are not quoting the maximum possible compression of a special case text file - like one consisting repetitions of&nbsp; the same short phrase&nbsp; )</p> <p>Typically lossless compression of music files (FLAC) achieves about 2:1 compression.</p> <p></p> <p>MK</p><img src="https://community.element14.com/aggbug?PostID=28878&AppID=217&AppType=Weblog&ContentType=0" width="1" height="1">