Comment by z500
10 days ago
> 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
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.
This almost IS the tar format. It’s just a 512 byte header with metadata per file then the file data. Repeat for each file. The cpio format is similar but the header is shorter. Details of the contents of the headers vary, hence the different flavours. And I believe POSIX added extensible extra metadata fields that are saved as a kinda pseudo file
Floppy disks..ah, good times :)