Does anybody know for what the acronym ZIP stands for which was and is used in programs like PKZIP and GZIP? There is a compression algorithm named Lempel-Ziv-Welch-Algorithm (LZW) maybe the guy named Ziv invented together with other people ZIP?
I cannot find anything about it, maybe its not an abbreviation but instead it just means "to zip files" but I think originally there was more about it..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_%28file_format%29
The name "zip" (meaning "speed") was suggested by Katz's friend, Robert Mahoney. They wanted to imply that their product would be faster than ARC and other compression formats of the time.
ZIP is not a single algorithm; there are many possible compression algorithms which may be used in ZIP archives (sometimes even several different algorithms in the same archive). The PK in PKZIP stands for the author Phil Katz, but the “zip” is just the name of the product, not an acronym.