CompuServe Messages

This LhSFX, apparently from Fish Disk 987, is a rather curious entity. The revision author (Ralph Thanner) states that this version is years old, but wasn't released because he "lost this program on one of [his] backup disks"; meanwhile, he says that much better programs ("lhaSFX") have become available. The documentation accuses the original LhSFX author of theft (based on the alleged use of code taken directly from lh.library), and urges users not to send the sharware fee to him. And the documentation goes into great detail as to why the original package was poorly coded; from the examples cited there, it looks to me more like failure to invoke SMALLCODE/SMALLDATA in the linker than poor programming as such (Thanner bases his argument on a ReSource disassembly). Thanner's assembler source code is included in the archive, but doesn't shine either. Lack of comments, numerics instead of symbols for system calls and structure elements, direct hits to hardware (the Amiga's LED), lack of Workbench-driven code, and clumsy use of req.library (not reqtools!). I have no particular opinion on the merits of the original or revised version of LhSFX. But I do wonder: has anyone seen the "better and faster program lhaSFX" referred to in these docs? –Jim