[TML] New 3d computer simulation design

[Patrik Holmstrom]

On Dec 3, 2007 4:16 AM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> Somewhere in the archives is a discussion of formats and cost for X-
> boat messages. At a guess, 10 years back.
>
> We had it broken down using then current stuff and a bit of guessing
> as to future tech.
>
> For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably
> cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use
> something like unicode.

Yeah, but the Shannon entropy of the data is still the same so if you
compress it you end up with identical (theoretical case) or near
identical (real world case) sizes. For instance Mary Shelly's
Frankenstein goes from (ascii/unicode) 439kB/877kB to 140kB/142kB
using the 7z compression algorithm. Since you'd like to compress the
message anyway you don't save anything useful from using a more
compact character set.

/Patrik