SQ (program)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

SQ (squeeze) is a computer program, devised by Richard (Dick) Greenlaw circa 1981, which was used in the early 1980s on both DOS and CP/M computer systems to compress files so they use less space.

Files compressed by SQ are identified by changing the middle initial of the extension to "Q", so that text files ended with the extension .TQT, executable files ended with the extension .CQM or .EQE, documents with .DQC, batch files with .BQT, etc. SQ used static Huffman coding as the compression algorithm.

Groups of files were often combined into an archive using the LU program, which created

tar and gzip
together).

With the development of the ARC program (which combined both compression and archiving into one program) and its

LZW
algorithm (as ARC did) and plug the gap.

External links

  • Squeeze at the "Just Solve the File Format Problem" wiki