14 Mar
2005
14 Mar
'05
9:24 a.m.
At 10:44 PM 3/13/2005, you wrote:
Just found a terrific resource:
http://www.fileformat.info/
Has tons of information on file formats (mostly graphics, but also some
text and markup formats). Searchable, with links to specifications and
such. Might be useful when trying to decode an old file format you're not
familiar with.
A lot of the file format info comes from the second edition of
O'Reilly's Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats. I did a little
editing and contributed a chapter or so to it back in 1996.
It's a few years old and out of print, although it seems O'Reilly
has allowed it to be copied now. The primary author and I tried
pitching a 3D-oriented file format book to extend the series
but they didn't bite.
The guy's custom-made conglomerate of under-the-hood tools looked
interesting; I'd love to find a good CMS that would let me better
organize a similar pile of computer docs and tidbits. I'd love to
find something more oriented to museum-like curation and archiving,
with lots of metadata to preserve file info and location and origin.
- John