SQUOZE (abbreviated as SQZ) is a memory-efficient representation of a combined source and relocatable object program file with a symbol table on punched cards which was introduced in 1958 with the SCAT assembler[1][2] on the SHARE Operating System (SOS) for the IBM 709.
A SQUOZE deck contains an encoded binary form of the original assembly language code; SQUOZE decks are converted to absolute machine code and stored in memory by a loader program.
[8][9][10] In the SQUOZE encoding, identifiers in the symbol table were represented in a 50-character alphabet, allowing a 36-bit machine word to represent six alphanumeric characters plus two flag bits, thus saving two bits per six characters,[6][1] because the six bits normally allocated for each character could store up to 64 states rather than only the 50 states needed to represent the 50 letters of the alphabet, and 506 < 234.
Using base 50 already saves a single bit every three characters, so it was used in two three-character chunks.
"Squoze" is a facetious past participle of the verb 'to squeeze'.