TERSE

File Format
Name	TERSE
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Compression TERSE
Released	1984?

TERSE is a data compression format used on OS/2.

More research is needed to understand the scope of what TERSE was used for, and how many versions of it there are.

It can at least be used for single-file compression, as is done by the Advantis software listed below. This file format does not appear to have a conventional filename extension – compressed files may keep their original name.

Identification

At least some TERSE-compressed files start with bytes 05 01 01 00.

Related formats

The ZIP format documentation (APPNOTE) lists two "TERSE" compression methods:

10 - PKWARE Data Compression Library Imploding (old IBM TERSE)
18 - File is compressed using IBM TERSE (new)

So, apparently, PKWARE DCL Implode is closely related to TERSE.

Software

• TERSE utility by Michael Nagy and Advantis
  • [1] → tersepc.zip - Collection of binaries for several platforms
  • terse.zip - OS/2 binaries
  • IBM Knowledge Center: Terse Utility

Links

• Wikipedia article