a process for reducing the context memory requirements in a processing system is provided by a generic , lossless , compression algorithm applied to multiple tasks or multiple instances running on any type of processor . the process includes dividing data in a task of a multi - tasking system into blocks with each block containing the same number of words . for the data in each task , a word in a block having a maximum number of significant bits is determined , a packing width to the block of said maximum number of significant bits is assigned , and the least significant bits of each word in the block into a packed block of the packing width multiplied by a total number of words in the block is encoded with a lossless compression algorithm . a prefix header at the beginning of each packed block to represent a change in the packing width from the packed block from a packing width of a previous packed block is also provided .