FILE_ID.DIZ is a

plain-text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects ( floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a lim ...

file containing a brief description of the content of

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

to which it belongs. Such files were originally used in archives distributed through bulletin board systems (BBSes) and is still used in the

warez scene The Warez scene, often referred to as The Scene, is a worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups specializing in obtaining and illegally releasing digital media for free before their official sale date. The Scene distributes all fo ...

. stands for "file identification". stands for "description in

zipfile ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless compression, lossless data compression. A ZIP file may contain one or more files or directories that may have been compressed. The ZIP file format permits a number of compression algorithms, ...

". Traditionally, a FILE_ID.DIZ should be "up to 10 lines of text, each line being no more than 45 characters long", according to v.1.9 of the specification. The concept of .DIZ files was to allow for a concise description of uploaded files to be automatically applied. Advertisements and " high-ASCII" artwork, common in .nfo files, were specifically prohibited.

History

Bulletin boards commonly accept uploaded files from their users. The BBS software would prompt the user to supply a description for the uploaded file, but these descriptions were often less than useful. BBS system operators spent many hours going over the upload descriptions correcting and editing the descriptions. The inclusion in archives was designed to address this problem.

Clark Development PCBoard (PCB) was a bulletin board system (BBS) application first introduced for DOS in 1983 by Clark Development Company. Clark Development was founded by Fred Clark. PCBoard was one of the first commercial BBS packages for DOS systems, and was ...

and the

Association of Shareware Professionals The Association of Software Professionals (ASP), formerly Association of Shareware Professionals, was a professional association for authors and developers of freeware, commercial, and shareware computer software. It was formed in April 1987, and ...

(ASP) supported the idea of this becoming a standard for file descriptions. Clark rewrote the PCBDescribe program and included it with their

PCBoard PCBoard (PCB) was a bulletin board system (BBS) application first introduced for DOS in 1983 by Clark Development Company. Clark Development was founded by Fred Clark. PCBoard was one of the first commercial BBS packages for DOS systems, and wa ...

BBS software. The ASP urged their members to use this description file format in their distributions. Michael Leavitt, an employee of Clark Development, released the file specification and his PCBDescribe program source code to the public domain and urged other BBS software companies to support the DIZ file. SysOps could add a common third-party script written in PPL, called "DIZ/2-PCB" that would process, rewrite, verify, and format DIZ files from archives as they were uploaded to a BBS. The software would extract the archive, examine the contents, compile a report, import the DIZ description file and then format it according to your liking. During this time, it was usual practice to add additional lines to the description, such as ads exclaiming the source of the uploaded BBS. Even since the decline of the dial-up bulletin board system, FILE_ID.DIZ files are still utilized by the

in their releases of unlicensed software. They are commonly bundled as part of the complete packaging by self-described pirate groups, and indicate the number of disks, and other basic information. Along with the NFO file, it is essential to the release. Especially in terms of unlicensed software ("warez"), it was common for each file in a sequential compressed archive (an archive intentionally split into multiple parts at creation so the parts can then be individually downloaded by slower connections like dial-up. Example: .rar, .r00, .r01, .r02, etc.) to contain this file. This probably contributed to its extended popularity after the decline of the bulletin board system in the late 1990s and early 2000s until now, since even casual consumers of unlicensed software would have stumbled upon it due to its abundance.

Formal structure

While real-world use among BBSs varied, with the NPD world and even different BBS brands coming up with expanded versions, the official format is: Plain, 7-bit ASCII text, each line no more than 45 characters wide. # Program/file name: Ideally, all uppercase and followed by one space. Carriage returns are ignored in this file. # Version number: In the format "v1.123", followed by a space. # ASP number: Only if an actual ASP member, otherwise ignored. # Description separator: A single short hyphen "-". # Description: The description of the file. The first two lines should be the short summary, as older boards cut off the rest. Anything beyond that should be extended description, for up to eight lines, the official cut-off size. Additional text could be included beyond that but might not be included by the board. Many archives would stick strictly to the 45-character plain ASCII format for the first 8 lines, then contain an appended 80-character wide 8-bit ASCII or ANSI graphic page with better-formatted documentation after that.

References

External links

FILE_ID.DIZ Specification
v1.9 by Richard Holler.

Bulletin board systems Filenames Third-party DOS files Warez Articles with underscores in the title

History

Formal structure

See also

References

Further reading

External links