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Phil Katz Biography

Phil Katz aka Phillip Walter Katz
Phil Katz
Phillip Walter Katz
Born: 1962-11-03
Died: 2000-04-14
Location of Death: Milwaukee, WI
Cause of Death: Alcoholism

Race: White
Religion: Jewish
Field: Computer Programmer
Famous for: Creator of PKZIP

Field: Computer Programmer

Phillip Walter Katz, better known as Phil Katz, was a computer programmer best-known as the author of PKZIP, a program for compressing files which ran under the PC operating system DOS.

Phil Katz received a bachelor's degree in computer science from UW-Milwaukee.

His first compression product was released in the mid-1980s with a program called PKARC. PKARC was compatible with the then-popular ARC program written by Thom Henderson, founder of SEA System Enhancement Associates. ARC was written in C, with the source code available on SEA's BBS. PKARC, written partially in assembly language, was much faster (back then, compilers were not as good at optimization as they are today). Katz had a special flair for optimizing code. Besides writing critical code in assembly language, he would write C code to perform the same task in several different ways and then examine the compiler output to see which produced the most efficient assembly code. PKARC's speed quickly made it more popular than the earlier program.

He initially released only PKXARC, an extraction program, as freeware. Its much greater speed caused it to spread like wildfire throughout the BBS community. Strong positive feedback and encouragement from the community caused Katz to first add a compression program, PKARC, and then to make his software shareware.

PKARC, in addition to duplicating the compression techniques used in ARC, added an additional algorithm, which produced smaller files. However, these files still used the file extension ".ARC". This led to the situation where files which appeared to be created by SEA's ARC could not be read by that program. System Enhancement Associates's Henderson considered this an apropriation of his product's trademarked name, and sued Katz. Katz withdrew PKARC from the market, and instead released PKPAK, which was similar in all but name, and the file extension used.

System Enhancement Associates soon discovered that Katz had copied significant amounts of the copyrighted source code distributed with ARC. They sued for trademark violation and copyright infringement, and won: Katz was forced to change the program. According to expert witnesses hired by SEA, Katz had copied ARC's source code so extensively that even identical comments and spelling errors were found. The BBS community, arguably due to prompting from Katz, took the suit as an example of a large, faceless corporation crushing the little-guy — even though both companies were family businesses with fewer than 5 or so people. SEA's founder, Thom Henderson, has said that users who spoke to him at the time "didn't care" if PKARC misappropriated his copyrights and trademark; they just wanted to use the fastest software to compress and uncompress files.

Katz quickly replaced PKARC with PKPAK and, soon after that, with the new and completely re-written PKZIP, released as shareware, which compressed both better and faster than ARC. Katz kept the new ZIP file format open. As a result, it soon became a standard for file compression across many platforms.

PKZIP made Katz one of the most well known shareware authors of all time. Although his company PKWARE became a multimillion dollar company, Katz was more noted for his technical expertise, than expertise in running a company. His family assisted him in running the company, but he eventually fired them, when they denied him access to the company's profits.

Katz was adamantly opposed to Microsoft Windows in the early 90s. This led to PKWARE missing out on the opportunity to be the first to bring PKZIP to the platform.

Katz led a very troubled personal life and battled alcoholism for years. Attempts to help him proved fruitless, and it is reported that he died with no friends remaining. He was arrested several times for driving under the influence, and became known for spending more time in cheap motels and strip clubs than his own home.

Katz was found dead in a hotel room with an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps in his hand on April 14, 2000 at the age of 37. A coroner's report stated his death was a result of acute pancreatic bleeding caused by chronic alcoholism.

Phil Katz News


New Jersey Jewish Standard

Local teens provide disaster relief in Atlanta
New Jersey Jewish Standard
The NCSY volunteers included Erez Dadon, a senior at Fair Lawn High School; Phil Katz, a junior at Northern Highlands High School; Avi Steinbach, ...



CEO's move to PKWare based on location
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
PKWare was founded in 1986 by Phil Katz, a renowned software developer who died in 2000 at age 37 of acute pancreatic bleeding caused by chronic alcoholism. ...

and more »


Telegraph.co.uk

Oprah Winfrey: is she irreplaceable in daytime?
Entertainment Weekly
?She's at the end of traditional broadcast TV,? says Katz Television Group's Bill Carroll, citing increased threats from cable stations and DVRs. ...
Oprah to end her...


SI.com

Morning Jolt: Dodger treated for gunshot wound
SI.com
Katz described the incident as a "hunting accident," saying that Padilla was grazed in his right thigh by a bullet. Katz said that Padilla spent 30 to 40 ...

and more »


? Insurance agency under fire in hospital deal also handling Kenner city business
NOLA.com
But in April 2005, he said, he inexplicably received a letter from then-Mayor Phil Capitano saying Katz had taken over the account. ...

and more »


No cupcakes here, Washington coach says about Wright State
Springfield News Sun
SEATTLE ? A lot of in-season basketball tournament hosted by name teams contain the name team ...

and more »


OregonLive.com

Oregon State Beavers news, photos and videos by The Oregonian's Paul Buker
OregonLive.com
Saturday begins badly for Beavers' fans when news breaks - on CNN - that Nike's Phil Knight has successfully lobbied the NCAA to expunge the Stan...


NOLA.com

Jefferson Parish's Tim Whitmer must decide between public and private roles ...
NOLA.com
Former Kenner Mayor Phil CapitanoMr. Capitano conveniently has amnesia about his magnanimity. He said he couldn't remember meeting with Mr. Katz and did...


Staten Island adult sports roundup for November 15, 2009
SILive.com
Sunday Nite Mixed: Will Tompkins 663; Mark Katz 280-699; Linda Spiro 227; John Heitmann 249; Anthony Mignone 259-692. The Bushwhackers dropped a 3-2 ...

and more »


Neiman Marcus CEO says consumers still cautious
Reuters India
But consumers should not expect the same level of discounts this year, Karen Katz told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a summit hosted by trade ...

and more »



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