Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections |
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Introduction | Sustainability Factors | Content Categories | Format Descriptions | Contact |
Full name | Electronic Arts Interchange File Format 1985 (EA IFF 85) |
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Description | Generic wrapper format developed for data interchange and interoperability. |
Production phase | Various, depends upon application. |
Relationship to other formats | |
Has subtype | AIFF, Audio Interchange File Format |
Has subtype | DSDIFF_1_5, Direct Stream Digital Interchange File Format, Version 1.5 |
Has subtype | Wrappers for other applications, not documented here |
Affinity to | SMF, Standard MIDI File Format |
LC experience or existing holdings | None. |
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LC preference | See the Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement for format preferences for Audio Works. |
Disclosure | Fully documented. Developed by Electronic Arts. |
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Documentation | EA IFF documentation is provided online by various third parties. |
Adoption |
The IFF FORM and Chunk Registry lists known chunks used by organizations and/or applications. See also AIFF. |
Licensing and patents | None. |
Transparency | Transparent wrapper. Transparency of bitstreams within subtypes varies; for example, see LCPM and DSD. |
Self-documentation | The format includes headers and identifiers associated with various "chunks," as the elements within the file are called. These headers contain encoded information (as specified) used to characterize the chunk's role and characteristics. |
External dependencies | None |
Technical protection considerations | None known to the compilers of this document. |
Sound | |
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Normal rendering | Not applicable |
Fidelity (high audio resolution) | Not applicable |
Multiple channels | Not applicable |
Support for user-defined sounds, samples, and patches | Not applicable |
Functionality beyond normal rendering | Not applicable |
Tag | Value | Note |
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Filename extension | iff |
See https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1569639. |
Internet Media Type | application/x-iff |
See freedesktop.org.xml.in repository |
Magic numbers | 46 4F 52 4D |
See Gary Kessler's File Signatures. |
IFF formname and/or chunkname | See note. | See https://web.archive.org/web/20120618154548/http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-spec16/?ca=dgr-lnxw07IFF. (Available via Internet Archive capture from June 18, 2012. Chunk IDs are discussed in https://www.martinreddy.net/gfx/2d/IFF.txt. |
Pronom PUID | x-fmt/157 |
See http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/x-fmt/157. |
Wikidata Title ID | Q1569639 |
See https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1569639. |
General | |
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History |
The format was brought to completion in 1985 by the electronic gaming company Electronic Arts; some of the information about IFF refers to the Commodore-Amiga computer company and three Commodore-Amiga staff members are listed as co-authors of a key piece of documentation. An outline of the history of Electronic Arts is provided by Wikipedia. The IFF format was influential and is cited as the source of ideas and approach by the creators of other tagged formats, e.g., RIFF and SMF. |
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