Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ubvax!ardent!rap
From: rap@ardent.UUCP (Rob Peck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: How satisfied are you with IFF?
Summary: there is an alternative...
Message-ID: <584@ardent.UUCP>
Date: 16 Sep 88 16:35:58 GMT
References: <3427@crash.cts.com>
Organization: Dana Computer, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 27

In article <3427@crash.cts.com>, haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) writes:
>         Having had to get into EA's IFF code this summer, I've been more
> than a little disappointed.  The code is cumbersome and hard to work with.
>         So, I started working on a re-vamp...
> [more details deleted]

There is an alternative to EA's code... a fella named Jim Kent
(of Aegis Animator fame, I believe) who did a rehash of the EA
code in a far more understandable fashion and (I believe) placed it in the
public domain.  The name of the program group in general is "JIFF".
Lattice was sufficiently impressed with its (relative) simplicity
that it is now on the Lattice 4.0 disks as source code.  Perhaps
John Toebes can comment on the PD status or if Jim is listening,
he can confirm?

I have a copy of the code and I thought that it was once submitted
to Fred Fish for possible inclusion in the usual way, but I don't
keep a CAT-FISH list handy so I cannot look it up.  When last I talked
to Jim, he had taken care of all of the data compression stuff and
he said that JIFF now included a fully EA compatible IFF reader and
writer program.

Posted in the hopes of preventing reinventing the wheel and letting
Wade get on to the more important things in life, like creating real
(money-making?) software for Amy.

Rob Peck