From: *@eli.users.panix.com   
      
   In comp.misc, Lawrence D'Oliveiro   wrote:   
   > On Thu, 23 Jan 2025 15:16:38 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:   
   >> Instead of relying on generic compression techniques, he took advantage   
   >> of the properties of the data and developed a compression algorithm that   
   >> came within 0.03 bits of the theoretical limit of possible compression.   
   >> To this day, it remains unbeaten.   
   > All of which only worked for the English language (US).   
   >   
   > What happened when they had to support other languages?   
      
   Pretty sure the answer is: The program was completely replaced.   
   No one uses spell anymore, ispell or something else gets used.   
      
   When it was written, Unix' main use to the owning company was producing   
   phone books with the runoff tools. Those didn't need spell checking of   
   customer names or addresses, and so had very little text _to_ spell   
   check.   
      
   Just because the solution doesn't make sense to use now, doesn't mean it   
   wasn't clever then.   
      
   Elijah   
   ------   
   probably still works better than chapgpt   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)