The PC era was marked by app-specific file formats and little interchange. To me, when the PC was released it was a shock as I already used to (somewhat) inter

The PC era was marked by app-specific file formats and little interchange. To me, when the PC was released it was a shock as I already used to (somewhat) interchangeable file formats on the networked machines we used back then. By the late 90s there were some interchangable formats for photos and audio at least, though often you still had to install plug ins, drivers, codecs etc for various proprietary formats especially video. Basically a silo situation as bad as today.