IFF is still relevant even now if you want a really straightforward binary blob package. There's almost nothing to it for basic parsing - just watch out for the

IFF is still relevant even now if you want a really straightforward binary blob package. There's almost nothing to it for basic parsing - just watch out for the byte alignment padding and endianness, and default to loading chunks by name, not order. (On that note, a lot of software that works with IFF/AIFF/RIFF will "do it wrong" and expect a particular chunk order for the data it works with, which over the years has led to a lot of "fix-up" software for cranky programs needing massaged data.)