Star is the fastest known implementation of a tar archiver. Star
development started 1982, development is still in progress. The
current version is stable.

Main advantages over other tar implementations:
    fifo            - keeps the tape streaming.
    pattern matcher     - for a convenient user interface
    sophisticated diff  - user tailorable interface for comparing tar 
                  archives against file trees
    no namelen limitation   - Pathnames up to 1024 Bytes may be archived.
    deals with all 3 times  - stores/restores all 3 times of a file
    does not clobber files  - more recent copies on disk will not be 
                  clobbered from tape
    automatic byte swap - star automatically detects swapped archives
    automatic format detect - automatically detects archive formats:
                  Old tar, gnu tar, ansi tar, star.
    fully ansi compatible   - Star is fully ANSI/Posix 1003.1 compatible.

Author: Joerg Schilling <js@cs.tu-berlin.de>
Please mail bugs and suggestions to him.