This little 'message' is for the benefit of all you other domestic
types out there who took the time to DL the various ARC* packages
floating around that contained the programs - 

                        AFX     .PRG
                        PFXPAK  .PRG

and their GERMAN Documentation!

It required a cramcourse in se Deutche, but I finally managed to glean
most of the viable information from those varied docs.

Here is the resulting commentary for anyone who might be interested:


To begin with, PFX* does some essential tricks to the common Program
File - that is, most(sic) runtime programs such as PRG, TOS, TTP, etc. 
The result is a PACKed runtime program that will unPACK as part of the
initialization process.  No doubt most of us were able to figure that
out without much pondering.  What I have found to be of interest is
that even unusual programs like PGS 1.8 and EZD 1.2, which tend to
balk over such manipulations seem to work really great!  They not only
load and run faster, but some of the minor 'inconveniences' I've
experienced in the past seem to have disappeared!

The really interesting thing, however, is that youo can also PACK text
and data files, formatted or pure, in the same manner.  The packing
process throws away all the blanks, spaces, tabs, or whatever, while
bit-processing the character information.

This results in a file that is completely unreadable and unuseable -
on the face of it.  It is, however, considerably smaller than even the
standard *LZH (lh5) result and took about half the time.  Great for
storage!  This 'PACKing' will not allow for multiple files, however. 
That is, you must pack them one at a time and only PFXPAK will extract
them under normal circumstances.  If you rename them to *LZH, however,
201k will churn them back to normal in record time.


Now for the neat trick!  If you click on AFX.PRG, it will install
itself aas a TSR.  From now on, all you have to do is click on the
pre-packaged file you've made and it becomes readable text in memory
without actually expanding on the storage medium ...

Run PGS and a PGS docfile will load and extract as usual in the
background - and in a shorter period of time!  Run STWRITER for the
same results when loading textfiles!  Double-click on the packed
textfile and it becomes isntantly readable under NEODESK!  AFX.PRG is
doing all the work inside and at lightning speed - and it only takes
up about 8K!


OK.  Now for a quick and dirty tutorial.


      1.  Install AFX.PRG
      2.  Run PFXPAK.PRG
      3.  Select the TEXT, ASCii, or DATA file when prompted
      4.  Wait until the 'save' selector appears
      5.  Save the PACKed file with a changed extender
                  (.txt to .txx - for example)
      6.  Repeat process as many times as needed to PACK all the
          selected files ...
      7.  Exit from PFXPAK.PRG

Now for the technical part!

      8.  Move all the PACKed versions to a new directory
      9.  Change the extenders back to the originial!
                  (.txx to .txt - for example)
     10.  Make sure that AFX.PRG is installed:
            If nothing has gone wrong, it should be ...
            If you have re-booted for some reason, run it again.
            Or it can just go in the AUTO Folder ...

So long as AFX.PRG is installed, these packed files will be unPACKed
every time they are used by their respective programs or otherwise
manipulated.

Bottom line:  Takes some time to put it all together, but saves an
incredible amount of storage space!


As an example of what this is all about, I am including the AFX.PRG
and two versions of a typical text file for you to test out.  The
original file is over 56k.  The PACKed file is 23k.  Just install AFX
and then check out the two test files.  You'll be impressed!


D. STUART