For example the code 3 cruncher always uses the areas
A000 to BFFF or even 8000-BFFF (as often as needed) plus 2400-25xx and
2600-28xx - thus it will not be good for cart games. The Fast Packer is
the fastest (and still not the worst!) packer, but its packing rate is
poor - it always uses Page 4 for depacking and you cannot choose where
in memory the packed file is. The Packer+Linker from Thorsten Karwoth
(two versions: plink.com, xlpack.com) is the worst packer in the case of
packing rate - therefore it can completely unpack a packed file to its
unpacked form and of course the packed file is self-executable. The
Packer+Linker uses page 4 (or was it page 1?) for depacking and nope you
cannot choose where in memory the packed file should be. the DJ-Packer
is avaiable in two versions: one uses page 5 and page 6 (DJ56pak.com)
for depacking, the other one uses page 1 and page 4 (DJ14pak.com) for
depacking. In packing rate or efficiency this one is simply the best,
but you need two drives or 1 drive+RD to use it.

There is also the SFDN packer, it should be of best use (the demo makers
say) for packing texts and gfx, but it can be used for ML programs also.
The problem is, that it does not supply any depacker (it does not create
self-executables automatically). The original polish text said, that you
have to code your own depacker - therefore you had the advantage to use
(almost) the memory area you want. I think I also have a LZW packer from
Madteam, that is not on this disk (because it is almost full!) - but it
also does not support any depacker and thus you have to add your own
one. Because of this I never used the LZW packer from MadTeam or the
SFDN packer. Finally there is the Flash packer from Tight it produces
self-executable files (supplies a depacker!) and you can choose where in
memory the packed file should be. The problem here: the packed file
memory area must not be the same as the unpacked file memory area (i.e.
if a file uses $2000 - $5FFF you have to use $6000 and higher for the
packed file!), next it does not like init adresses (you can add them
later!) and it is limited to 31kbytes. The biggest problem for me always
were the init adresses (if a file had more than one) and the memory
area. But luckily this packer does not use or produce any flicker while
depacking... So thats it in short about the polish packers, I have more
of them in my collection, but most of them work as archives, thus you
need a separate depacker to unpack programs.

Ok, some notes about the DJ packer and code 3 cruncher (also for the
Magnus cruncher 5.0 which is similar to the code 3 cruncher).  1) the DJ
packer: it requires two drives or at least one drive + a RD; load the DJ
packer from drive 2-9 (floppy drive, RD, etc.); if you choose the DJ14
packer press SHIFT to skip the intro; after a while both DJ packers will
read in the DIR of drive 1; use arrow up/down to choose and Return to
select a file and start loading+packing; the file will be loaded in
segments (no segment must be longer than 37kbytes or the DJ packer will
crash - use the Fast packer then!) and packed with a very good packing
rate; the DJ immediately asks for a destination file name, simply type
in the name (no D: or D1: since it merely saves to drive one) and of
course make sure there is enough empty room on the disk for both the
unpacked file (which will be loaded from time to time) and the DJ packed
file; I therefore mostly use medium/enhanced density to pack a file;
when packing is done (this can take as long as a tape boot - 15 minutes
or so...) a message appears which says "Packing complete; press Reset to
reboot"; unfortunately Reset does not work or almost never works, thus
power off and back on again to test the packed file; when I used the DJ
packer wisely all packed files worked ok afterwards; what means wisely -
no file should have segments with more than 37kbytes in length, no file
should use page 1,4,5 or 6 if the chosen DJ packer uses this area for
unpacking... thats it for the DJ packer - quite easy eh ??
the Flash packer from Tight. Ok, here
a quick manual: load it from DOs 2.x without Basic, press Space to read
in Dir of drive 1, use arrow up/down to choose a file, RETURN to select
and load+pack a file. After the file has loaded and packed the menu will
appear again (also if you get an error), press TAB to change to the
right side of the window and use arrow up/down to move; goto the start
adress in the right window and change it for the start adress you want
(note: avoid collisions with the unpacked file!), you can even choose a
start adress lower than DOS ($1000 or even lower!) memlo; but beware of
reserved adresses (like pages 0-5 which are partially used by the OS or
DOS; think $0700 is the lowest possible adress...); then use arrow up to
move to the filename and use delete/insert etc. to erase letters and
type in your own ones; press return when done and the packed file will
be saved to drive 1 (think this can also be changed to drive 2-8);

biggest problem are the init adresses and the memory area; I have
sucessfully packed files with just one init adress at the start or end;
first I removed the init adress (with super packer or another tool) and
saved it as a file to disk; then I packed the program (the one without
init adress) with Flash packer and finally I appended the init adress
(and/or other data) to the packed file, this worked fine with quite some
files; of course it does not work very well with programs that have
dozens of init adresses (its very awkward to remove all inits first and
append them later...). just try it out !! I like the Flash packer,
because it does not flicker when depacking and it creates a single file
(with just one data segment and an init/run adress)...        Greets,
Andreas.