For example, one format I use is just to concatenate multiple files into a single one, I use it to group video timeline seeker images into one file - it is faster than using archive or tar/gzip. Another one is a format that concatenates AES-GCM chunks into a single file, which allows me to have interrupted writes and it also supports seeking and streaming of reads.
These things are quite useful, but there is no general use(like gzip/tar). Usually there is some specific functionality needed, so they have to always be written from scratch.
And yeah, like I said, random access is possible but you have to write your own "driver" for it.
I did something like this when I was moving my files onto a new computer like 25 years ago, and all I had was a floppy drive. Just continuously dump the data onto a floppy until space runs out and ask for another one until there are no more files.
> The CPU wasn't terribly slow for the time, but wasting cycles would have been noticed.
> Compressing data means you save space on the disc...
While wasting cycles isn't a good thing it's even worse if you are wasting those cycles by not using them because you are waiting for a sloooow media.
And while you can invent a compressed format for the every asset type you have it would be really easier to just compress the whole thing a let the compressor to do the magic.
NB: I still somewhat remember the original SC and it was like 'future is now' with all those glorious shadows and sunshine blooming.
I've been authoring IFF/LBM and PCX format en/decode libraries recently because of the half-assed implementations that half-heartedly cherrypick a few features rather than fully-support these formats robustly.
ktpsns•3mo ago