{center}
{subhead} Interview with Jim Cooper{def}{p}
Article by {link http://www.amigaworld.com}http://www.amigaworld.com{end}
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Jim = Jim Cooper{p}
AW = AmigaWorld
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And now the article follows...
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AW:
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LhA is back!
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The probably most widespread utility ever coded for the Amiga is back!
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With his LhA archiving utility, Stefan Boberg created an executable that
shaped the Amiga community like no other program - of course with the
exception of Exec itself. :-)
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Over 90% of Amiga-related archives are stored in LhA format.In a
computing world where ZIP files and their variations are almost
omnipresent - like PKZip on Windows plattforms, or GNU-zipped tape
archives (.tgz) in Unix enviroments - the LhA format is considered
"exotic" by most people outside the Amiga community.
{p} {p}
But for many years now, LhA offered performance, reliability,
versatility, and widespread acceptance, something various "simple" Unix
ports of ZIP utilities failed to achieve. The freely distributable
evaluation version (v1.38) of this shareware product resides on almost
every Amiga hard disk out there still spinning, and many people
registered themselves to enjoy the enhanced capabilities of the full
version (v1.50).
{p} {p}
However, Stefan Boberg dropped development of LhA long ago - no updates,
no keyfiles. Several other utilities tried to replace LhA as the
standard archiving utility: LZX showed much promise, until its author,
Jonathan Forbes, also cancelled its further development.
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For a long time, all we could do was using the evaluation version of
LhA. While a generic keyfile of LZX was released some time ago, the LZX
algorithm was proprietary to the Amiga, and not as widely accepted as
LhA - last but not least due to some bugs left in the (final) 1.21
version of LZX.
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 So, the main archive utility of the Amiga was orphaned. Until now.
{p} {p}
Jim Cooper finally persuaded Stefan Boberg to pass on his source code
for LhA. after some clean-ups, LhA is back in its new 1.94 version - and
distributed as freeware!
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I talked to Jim Cooper, about history and future of LhA. Here are his
answers.
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AW:   First, thank you for joining this interview. It is great to see
that LhA is finally "back in the community". Just why did Stefan stop
sending out keyfiles at all?
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JIM:  Truthfully, I don't know. I never asked him.
I do know that he got very busy as the project leader on new game code
(for other platforms), and that took almost all his time.
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AW: What is his attitude towards LhA today?
{p} {p}
JIM: The last time I traded EMail with him, he seemed glad that someone
was willing to continue with it.
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AW: What has changed from version 1.50 to 1.94?
{p} {p}
JIM: At least one third of the code that Stefan send me was in 68000
assembler, with some 68030 optimizations. I ported the code to 100% C,
for portability. (And some bugfixes, of course.)
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AW: Will you provide further support for LhA if bugs are found, or to
further improve LhA's abilities?
{p} {p}
JIM: Yes, most certainly. In fact, I tried to upload 1.95, 1.96, and
1.97 to Aminet within just a few days of 1.94. That's when I found out
that they didn't accept uploads of newer versions of the same file
within 10 days of each other. I waited a while, then tried to upload
1.98, but by that time, Aminet was down (a little before Christmas 1998,
remember?), and I simply never tried again since.
{p} {p}
The version of LhA currently in Beta test (a few revisions beyond 1.98
:-) is smaller, faster, and generates smaller archives than ever before.
I also have someone working on it with me, now: David Tritscher, who has
uploaded several utilities to Aminet in the past, such as "unlzx,"
"undms," and others. He lives in Australia, and is a real whiz at the
low level compression code.
{p} {p}
The latest Beta also supports the -lh6- compression format (compresses
as well as gzip, in most cases!) that the PC and UNIX versions have
supported for a while, now, and I am searching for info on -lh7-.
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We also have a few things on the "TODO" list that could make it compress
as well as LZX (or better), while still being compatible with current
LhA. :-)
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AW: Will you provide optimised versions for the 68k CPU line in the
future, or even (drool) a PPC version?
{p} {p}
JIM: Since the code is now 100% C, I could provide versions optimised
for every 68k CPU. However, it really doesn't make much difference to
the speed of the program, mainly its size is affected. I'll probably do
it anyway, just so that others can see.
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As for the PPC version: As soon as the code is made a little bit more
portable. Even though it is 100% C now, it is still very bad C in some
places (:-), and needs to be cleaned up.
{p} {p}
AW:  Will you migrate LhA to OS 3.5 / NG Amiga?
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JIM:  Sure, if I can.
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AW:  Was it on purpose you did not give your EMail address in the LhA
archive, but only in the .readme?
{p} {p}
JIM: Yes. I knew it was going to change, soon (my new EMail is
jamie_c@bellsouth.net), and I didn't want to have to send out notices to
thousands of people.
Those who were really interested in finding me, did. :-)
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AW:  You cannot possibly get Jonathan Forbes to pass the source code of
LZX to you, too? ;-)
{p} {p}
JIM:  No, he went to work for Microsoft, and they incorporated his code
into theirs.
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AW:  Thank you for answering the questions. I hope you get the honors
you deserve for your effort...
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JIM: Not necessary. I simply like to program on the Amiga. I do it for
fun.
{p} {p}
AW:  ...and that this interview saves you some dozen of emails asking
you the same questions over and over again.
{p} {p}
JIM:  Too late. :-)
{p} {p}
The new LhA can be downloaded from Aminet: util/arc/LhA194.lha, and a
(albeit old) self-extracting archive for MS-DOS is available at
util/arc/msdos-lha.exe.If you want to keep up-to-date with new versions,
have a look at the Amiga Version Watch.
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{bold}Interview of Jim Cooper as taken from www.amigaworld.com{nobold}