What (who) is PKZIP - definition

PKZIP is a file archiving computer program, notable for introducing the popular ZIP file format. PKZIP was first introduced for MS-DOS on the IBM-PC compatible platform in 1989.

<tool> A file compression and archiver utility for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows from PKWARE, Inc.. PKZIP uses a variation on the sliding window compression algorithm. It comes with pkunzip and pklite and is available as shareware from most FTP archives in a self-expanding MS-DOS executable. Current versions as of 1999-10-07: PKZIP 2.60 GUI for Microsoft Windows 3.1x, Windows 9x, Windows NT; PKZIP 2.50 Command Line for Windows 9x NT; PKZIP 2.04g for MS-DOS; PKZIP 2.51 for Unix, (Linux, SPARC Solaris, Digital, HP-UX, IBM AIX and SCO Unix); PKZIP 2.50 for OS/2; PKZIP for Open VMS/VAX. WINZIP is a version with a GUI for Microsoft Windows. A distribution in about 1995-06-22 claiming to be "PKZIP 3" was actually a Trojan horse which attempted to reformat the hard disk and delete all files on it. http://pkware.com/catalog/pkzip_win.html. [Status, history of WINZIP, PKLITE?] (1999-01-16)

<tool, compression> A program to unpack archives created by PKZIP, written by PKWARE, Inc. and released as shareware. Versions exist for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Open VMS. PKUNZIP is no longer distributed, its functions having been incorporated into PKZIP. (1999-01-07)