Library of Congress Format Descriptions Visualization

Spoiler alert: If you want to browse what I came up with, you can check it out here: https://lc-sdf-data-exploration.vercel.app/ Readers of this blog will know that I’ve been working through researching 39 formats for the Library of Congress Sustainability of Digital Formats site because I’ve been blogging about it weekly since August (and that series will continue until end of next May). I had a bit of holiday downtime, so I was thinking about the...
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Researching file formats 14: Apple EMLX Format

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. In typical Apple fashion, this is a variation of an open and well-adopted standard (the EML format), modified slightly just to be Apple-specific, and totally undocumented. Got a kick out of this update to a blog post from jwz that reads “Update: Please, people, I asked a very straightfoward question. I’m not interested in your guesses....
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Researching file formats 13: vCard (virtual business cards)

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. vCard or VCF: Virtual Card Format? Virtual Contact File? vCard File? Sources are not consistent with this. This format has a lot of official specifications and extensions, lots of updated versions during the standardization process, several major versions, and a few different owning organizations. See: RFC 2425 - A MIME Content-Type for Directory Information RFC 2426...
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Researching file formats 12: Kryoflux raw disk image format

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. One of the things I know about Kryoflux is it has a bad reputation in multiple ways. ArchiveTeam has a strongly-worded blurb about concerns over the licensing agreement. Working on this format had me thinking a lot about the problem with companies that are closed-off or have really sketchy business practices, especially when the company does...
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Researching file formats 11: MOOF

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. The most interesting thing about this format is that its named after Susan Kare’s dogcow icon. (“Comments welcome” – Is there something more interesting?) This might be the first very lean format I’m working with, where I have the specification (in this case, reference document) and there’s not a ton of other info out there on...
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Researching file formats 10: HxC Floppy Emulator HFE File Format

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. My starting point for this format was this PDF (with a sweet logo). And I spent a lot of time deep in the forums on this one. It was nice to see a forum (and associated discords) be so active on the topic of floppy disk emulation – I had no idea, the reach. Maybe because...
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Researching file formats 9: Digital Forensics XML

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Digital Forensics XML, XML for your digital forensics. This had me thinking about BitCurator, which is a toolkit that had several years of public funding, and some institutional tie-in, but now has a community group and I wasn’t sure about what the sustainability model for the project was? There’s a consortium, but is the membership model...
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Researching file formats 8: PDF Portfolio

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. PDF Portfolio files! PDF is already such a tangled spaghetti mess of a format, and this format is just taking a whole bunch of them and making them into a mega-pasta dish. Here’s an overview And Flash is required to make these files! Or at least some of the time! I won’t be attempting it but...
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Researching file formats 7: WordPerfect Document Family

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. This is a challenging format to work on because it’s an entire family, and the family changed so much over time (and the EndNote Citation Library format was even worse, in this regard). It’s challenging because the file formats themselves change so much over the course of a format lifetime, and this software program went through...
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Techno-divination #8: please please please

please please please!!! please please please: an endless clicking game where you can beg the cruel and unrelenting universe for good fortune; a perfect choice for any place or state of oblivion, e.g. waiting rooms, airports, typing awareness indicators, sports arenas, and others. Recently, I realized I don’t have a way to send my desperate pleas out into the void, to beg at the feet of an relentlessly cruel, vast universe. I have vibe checks...
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Researching file formats 6: EndNote Citation Library Format

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Meta-note: This blog series aims to run once a week, but there won’t be posts for the next THREE weeks, as I’ll be on vacation and offline. Series to resume Oct. 13th. Big thanks to Tyler Thorsted for providing me with many sample files for this format (and for doing research that led to some thorough...
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Researching file formats 5: Radiance RGBE Image Format

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. This format was one that I started researching, but was only accidentally part of the set I was given, so this one will never have an FDD! But I learned a bit about the format before that was determined, so it merits having a blog post anyway. Radiance RGBE Image Format: This looks to be the...
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Researching file formats 4: Exif (Exchangable Image File Format)

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Hot on the tails of the JFIF format family, time to crack into the Exif family. (That’s short for “Exchangable image file format”) Like JFIF, LC already has an entry for EXIF so that makes for a good starting point. “Everything you wanted to know about media metadata, but were afraid to ask” is a nice...
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Researching file formats 3: JPEG File Interchange Format Family

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. As a meta-update: The formal works are starting to appear online! Go here to see Set 9’s official format descriptions. I’ve updated the previous two blog posts with direct links. Going forward, I thiiink my blog posts will mostly, if not completely, run ahead of the published sets. Right now, I do the bulk of the...
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Researching file formats 2: MySQL Table Definition Format

This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The format definitions are online here: MySQL Table Definition and MySQL View Definition. Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. This format took me on an interesting journey deep into the debts of MySQL. Not just any MySQL, but legacy, nearly-deprecated, “during or before shit hit the fan” MySQL. I laughed out loud when...
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