# Has any file type ever gone extinct? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 22, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687 "2012-05-22T03:06:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/61 "2012-05-23T11:48:45Z")
> [@Pitter\_Patter](#): > > Didn’t read everything, but I grew up on WordStar WS\_(insert version here). I think I still have some 5.25 floppies with Wordstar files from a Kaypro running CP/M. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/62 "2012-05-23T14:10:24Z")
I have an early spreadsheet app on 8 inch floppies still in shrink wrap. I should use it as a paperweight since it is in a nice plastic box. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/63 "2012-05-23T17:16:23Z")
> [@](#): > > The native word processing format for the (slightly) related Microsoft Works word processor was, at least way back when, WPS. Which was pretty close to extinct right from the start, since absolutely nothing but Microsoft Works (including Word) could open those files. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/64 "2012-05-23T18:01:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Which was pretty close to extinct right from the start, since absolutely nothing but Microsoft Works (including Word) could open those files. Yep. We get people all the time trying to bring in their Works files to open in Word and print, many of whom don’t even call Word “Word,” they call it “Microsoft.” “It’s the same thing, right? It’s Microsoft!” ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/65 "2012-05-24T02:35:49Z")
How about .com (no not the internet one). I was some sort of executable file used by MS-DOS. I never quite understood why it was different from .exe Bob ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/66 "2012-05-24T02:58:37Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Extinct is not a good term here because in the wild, if there are no more of a species left, that species can never come back (ignore cloning). If every BAT file ceased to exist tomorrow, I could still create one. Media format, excepting hardware, is similar. When was the last time you could even purchase hard sectored floppies for your HeathKit or DEC Rainbow? Now read [this](http://sebhc.lesbird.com/storage/hsfe.pdf) from 2009. But then again, the original (8-bit) CP/M worked with Intel 8080 or Zilog Z80 chips. If those are both out of use and unavailable, then I guess you could say that in a way CP/M is extinct. > > But you asked about file types. Since a file type can be created ex nihilo, a better term may be defunct and I can think of quite a few from the good ol’ DOS days like Wordstar, Lotus, Dbase or even eariler such as Visicalc. The point being that they may be defunct (not in use) but they are not extinct as I could creat a Lotus 123 or Wordperfect file if I needed to. Being a programmer myself, I interpreted the question to mean whether there were any file types for which the file type specification has been lost. That is, even if you had a list of the 1’s and 0’s making up the file, you would have to approach the file as a crypographer approaches a cyphertext rather than develop a method to transform the bitstream based on a requirements specification. A similar issue can apply (and it seems some have treated as in scope) to lower level media formats, such as a type of floppy disk format or magnetic tape format where the relationship between electric charges and the low-level 1’s and 0’s that make up discrete files cannot be determined because nobody knows how to take the magnetic patterns on the disk and identify how many files are stored there, what sizes they are, and get their bitstream because the specification on how to make a reader/writer for the medium has literally been lost and could not be rebuilt without rediscovering the spec, even with an arbitrarily large budget. This is different from being able to take that filestream and extract usable information such as an audio clip, novel, game, picture, movie, or corporate memo from it. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/67 "2012-05-24T03:02:00Z")
Seems to me that it ought to be possible for a few talented programmers to build software/hardware that can read old files and convert them, and which could also in themselves be future-proofed. Is there not a project out there to do this? EDIT: Just realised there was a second page to this thread, and I may just have reiterated what someone already said. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/68 "2012-05-24T03:08:12Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Seems to me that it ought to be possible for a few talented programmers to build software/hardware that can read old files and convert them, and which could also in themselves be future-proofed. Is there not a project out there to do this? Well, as long as you sufficiently document the technology, equipment to read it can be rebuilt at any future time assuming no catastrophic losses of natural resources or something. The problem is sufficiently documenting the technology. When was the last time a specification was actually documented thoroughly? ---
**Author:** ![oliversarmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/eb8c5e/32.png) [@oliversarmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oliversarmy)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/69 "2012-05-24T03:28:50Z")
I wrote a program in FORTRAN, but I have seemed to lost the cards. I have no memory of what the program was supposed to do. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/70 "2012-05-24T03:56:45Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > I was shocked a while back reading about what happened to the original tapes of [the Apollo 11 moonwalk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes). ‘Missing’ or someone noticed the camera guy’s shirt sleeve in the corner of the shot? :rolleyes: > [@Scumpup](#): > > I recently threw away a bunch of old CD-ROMS dating back to the mid-90’s through 2000-ish. They had picture files and video files downloaded from various newsgroups on them. I tossed them because none of the software on my computer was able to open about half the files. The video files, in particular, were problematic. The old jpeg files opened just fine, so I know the problem wasn’t that the discs themselves had deteriorated. \ Probably a really dumb question; isn’t there a way to send unreadable files, online or physically, to a company with **all** the software? Then pay them to convert it to be read on a modern system? Would this be so difficult to do? \ ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/71 "2012-05-24T04:36:42Z")
> [@JustinC](#): > > … > > \ > Probably a really dumb question; isn’t there a way to send unreadable files, online or physically, to a company with **all** the software? Then pay them to convert it to be read on a modern system? Would this be so difficult to do? > \ How much are you willing to pay? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/72 "2012-05-24T04:50:32Z")
The problem we have today is trivial. We have some data that can’t be read or interpreted that was collected 40 to 50 years ago. It can’t be that much data. 1 megabyte used to be an enormous number, and there weren’t all that many computers, disk drives, tapes, and what-have-you in the world. And among those there was limited amount of data or software that would be worth anything. But today we collect information at astronomical rates, with an ever expanding variety of applications, operating systems and storage conventions. It doesn’t matter if we store everything on super memory devices that will project themselves into another universe to avoid the heat death in this one. In another 40 or 50 years there will be oceans of unreadable material because the software is gone or impractical to re-impliment even if the data can be physically read. And there’s a much greater chance that we’ve collected something worthwhile saving. Or maybe not, because the singularity thing will make the entire works of mankind worthless. Either way, the problem we have today in recovering data is trivial in comparison to the problems we face in the future. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/73 "2012-05-24T06:58:16Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > How about .com (no not the internet one). I was some sort of executable file used by MS-DOS. I never quite understood why it was different from .exe COM files were single data/code segemented and were nonrelocatable - so they had to be small (sub-64k minus a bit). They also had no header. COM files were preferentially by the shell over EXE files of the same name. EXE files had multiple and separate data and code segments and had a header with relocation information. They could be bigger. Eventually DOS exe format was extended to the Portable Executable format used in Windows - this has environmental detection (i.e the “This program requires Microsoft Windows” message when run in DOS) and dynamic linking features, as well as relocation. They are no longer used in Windows, but DOS systems (DOSBox, FreeDOS) still have COM files. And we understand the format, even if it not particularly relevant to modern OSs. I’m guessing COM is still a valid target for a number of compilers. I’ve done data file format recovery in the past. It involves lots of playing around, checking storage formats (not every Real is stored in IEEE format), looking for repeating markers, figuring out strings, fixed length vs nonfixed, hoping that you understand flags and check bits and the rest. I did some data records (including serialized objects from Borland TurboPascal) and simple bitmaps (oh, and some password recovery, but that was only an XOR :smack:). I could not begin to attack a compressed object like a JPG Si ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/74 "2012-05-24T07:50:15Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > They are no longer used in Windows, but DOS systems (DOSBox, FreeDOS) still have COM files. And we understand the format, even if it not particularly relevant to modern OSs. I’m guessing COM is still a valid target for a number of compilers. I’ve heard that COM files are popular in some spam/malware emails because you click on [hottgirl.com](http://hottgirl.com) expecting to go to a webpage and instead start running a command file. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/75 "2012-05-24T10:25:03Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Since an entire early generation of Macintosh users filled many floppy disks with term papers and more complicated things written in MacWrite format, and it’s such a headache to deal with them now, I think it’s a perfect example. This is similar to Microsoft Write, which was abandoned for WordPad in Windows 95. Wordpad could originally open them and then save them as RTF files, but it no longer can. Fortunately, the solution is the same as for yours: run an emulator, load Windows 95 on it, open and resave. That’s what I’ve done to all my WRI files. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/76 "2012-05-24T13:14:38Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > How much are you willing to pay? 2 Polish Zlotys, 1 euro and 20 Lithuanian litas - saving you the price of exchanging those currencies - and a small cloud which comes in a handy, hand-size, clear plastic package 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/77 "2012-05-24T19:56:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **robert\_columbia** : > > Being a programmer myself, I interpreted the question to mean whether there were any file types for which the file type specification has been lost. That is, even if you had a list of the 1’s and 0’s making up the file, you would have to approach the file as a crypographer approaches a cyphertext rather than develop a method to transform the bitstream based on a requirements specification. A large part of my work for the past year or so has been to reconstruct such a lost file type specification. It’s for an ancient Fortran code for modeling neutron stars. The files are all ASCII text, and contain a whole bunch of decimal-formatted numbers, but nobody knew what any of the numbers _meant_. Which leads into **JustinC** ’s question. You can’t just have one big company that has “all the software”, since anyone at all can create software. I doubt there are more than a couple dozen or so people in the world who have a copy of this code I was working with. There’s no way any central entity could get a copy of everything on this scale. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687/78 "2012-05-24T20:49:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > A large part of my work for the past year or so has been to reconstruct such a lost file type specification. It’s for an ancient Fortran code for modeling neutron stars. The files are all ASCII text, and contain a whole bunch of decimal-formatted numbers, but nobody knew what any of the numbers _meant_. That’s fascinating, what do they want to reconstruct the code for? Who is doing it? I would think that they could model them better with more modern software so I’m pretty curious who wants to use this and for what. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-file-type-ever-gone-extinct/622687.md?page=3)