12. Apparatus for compressing English text coded as a sequence of ASCII coded 8-bit bytes as strings of 4-bit nibbles comprising: means storing a group of bytes corresponding to one word of text, means for comparing the beginning bytes of the stored word with groups of bytes stored in a prefix table, means responsive to the comparing means for signaling whether or not the group of bytes is in the prefix table, means responsive to the signaling means for generating at least two nibbles identifying the location of the beginning group of bytes in the prefix table, means removing the beginning group of bytes from the stored word of text, means responsive to the signaling means when the beginning bytes are not in the prefix table for comparing the ending bytes of the stored word with groups of bytes stored in a suffix table, means for signaling whether or not the ending group of bytes is in the suffix table, means responsive to the signaling means for generating at least two nibbles identifying the location of the ending group of bytes in the suffix table, means removing the ending group of bytes from the stored word, means responsive to the signaling means when the ending bytes are not in the suffix tables for counting the number of remaining bytes of the stored word, means generating a nibble indicating the counted number of remaining bytes, means responsive to each of said remaining bytes in sequence for comparing each byte with all characters stored in a character table, means responsive to the comparing means for generating at least one nibble for each byte identifying the location of the same byte in the table of characters, and means storing each of said generated nibbles in predetermined sequence.
15. Apparatus of claim 12 further comprising: means sensing when the stored group of bytes are numeric characters, means responsive to said sensing means for counting the number of bytes in the stored group of bytes, means generating a first nibble coded to indicate the word is numeric, means generating a second nibble coded to indicate the number of bytes counted, and means generating an additional nibble for each numeric byte coded to indicate the corresponding digit value, the generated nibbles being stored sequentially.