Radix-50

[riis]

I'm just curious if any of you have ever used radix-50 strings in his/her software. If you did, I hope you're willing to share your experiences. I know it's an old format, used at PDP-11 computers.
Currently, I'm working on a MicroStation Design File parser (old format, not V8). Radix-50 names are used in cell names.

[jim mcnamara]

I'd rather forget it. SQUOZE is purely for space saving in limited memory DEC systems. It's for storing things like internal symbol data in symbol tables. If you're using for regular string data you are NOT using for what is was intended. PDP-11 systems are still in use for real-time apps.

Here is a complete blow-by-blow description:

http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.s..._Link_6_Manual

My entire PDP-11 and PDP-8 experience revolves around finding ways to use linked progrAM segments to get large programs into 32K OR 64k memory. SQUOZE is the same deal.

Don't use SQUOZE data for anything that has to be referred to over and over again because the decoding time for each reference will kill you. The PDP caches a small of amount of decoded symbolsin an buffer of 256 bytes. The fewer SQUZOE symbols the faster things that iterate over those symbols go.