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For me, having gotten my ears wet with CP/M, I seem to recall it was so there was a cheap means of indexing files by type if required, since there weren't much

For me, having gotten my ears wet with CP/M, I seem to recall it was so there was a cheap means of indexing files by type if required, since there weren't much in the way of sorted lists built-in, and folders weren't really a thing either.

reaperducer 8y ago
Yep. The extension was the only way a program knew what type of data to expect from a file. There was no space on a disk for metadata. You couldn't put metadata on a tape. There wasn't enough memory in the computer for the OS to determine a file type by reading a header, and even if there was, some operating systems had their DOS in ROM, so that would mean never adding any more file types (I'm looking at you, CBM PRG, USR, SEQ, REL files!).
- anyfoo 8y ago
  Hah, at the time, “USR” files were the biggest mystery to me. I knew PRG, SEQ and REL, but this „custom“ file type seemed very special.
- ddingus 8y ago
  Apple had a file type and nice, long names.