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From: "jamie+howarth" <jamie@...> 
Date: Thu Apr 4, 2002 8:27am 
Subject: !!Thread getting too OT I think(OM)!!Re: [LAM] firewire drive  



Quoting Salient Bits
> > SDII files can be read on a PC by Awave Studio and 
Quicktime also 
 II data fork.
> 
> So, it cannot read the other part of the SDII file - which is the 
> Resource Fork (which has channel and bit depth info etc.) - the 
reason 
... PC's don't have an equivalent - 
> btw, this is one reason why in the past mac files didn't need 
extensions 
> like .exe as the necessary info was in the resource fork. With 
Mac OS X, 
> extensions are being used much more however than the 
resource fork 
> stuff - though it is still in use.

This is one of the substantive differences ( as contrasted to the 
religious wars) that differentiates the two platforms. Apple saw 
this coming years and years ago, and imbedded an identifying 
creator code and filetype within the file's header, which makes 
files self-identifying to their host apps, and obviates the need for 
the clumsy .jpg or.qtv or.doc or .whatevah extensions. It is also a 
really really good idea, and part of why Mac users get so crazy 
over the platform wars is that most of the really really good ideas 
that the Mac OS clearly provided are undermined by the 
economic necessity to adopt  less sophisticated (dumber) 
conventions still required  by the Windows OS's stubborn 
reliance on vestiges of the antiquated MSDOS. It is truly 
paradoxical that a culture that kids itself that it is progressive still 
allows the droppings of this dinosaur to litter the landscape, 20 
years after it was rendered technologically obsolete by the 
alternative methods of building apps the MacOs provided.