http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?24,83324

 

* PACK_KEYS

PACK_KEYS takes effect only with MyISAM tables. Set this option to 1 if you want to have smaller indexes. This usually makes updates slower and reads faster. Setting the option to 0 disables all packing of keys. Setting it to DEFAULT tells the storage engine to pack only long CHAR or VARCHAR columns.

If you do not use PACK_KEYS, the default is to pack strings, but not numbers. If you use PACK_KEYS=1, numbers are packed as well.