One of the Amiga's strengths is the wide acceptance of several IFF specifications. Most notable is the ease with which graphic files (of form ilbm) can be transferred among dozens of paint, animation and special effects packages. This ability to to easily share data between a variety of programs lets the user select the best program for a specific job rather than fighting the restritions of a single, all-in-one software package. Developers can market specialized applications that are good at a certain limited set of operations, and with the help of the multitasking Amiga operating system, create the effect of a large integrated system. Any developer with a package that creates or reads data should use an existing IFF standard. If no current IFF form is suitable then the developer should contact other developers and users with similar needs and work out a new IFF form using the design principles specified in this appendix. To prevent conflicts, new IFF forms must be registered with Amiga, Inc. before they are used. No additional restrictions are placed on the design of IFF forms aside from the general IFF syntax rules listed here. Contents of the IFF Specification --------------------------------- ea iff 85 - general iff format specifications form specifications from the original ea document third party public form and chunk specifications and additional documents iff source code