Program information file

A program information file (PIF) defines how a given DOS program should be run in a multi-tasking environment, notably to avoid giving it unnecessary resources which could remain available to other programs. TopView was the originator of PIFs which were inherited and extended by DESQview and Microsoft Windows, where they are most often seen. PIFs are seldom used today in software due to the absence of DOS applications.

Basic overview

The PIF file originally contained only one block of data storing the parameters needed to run under TopView. These included fields like an ASCII string for the window title, the maximum and minimum amount of RAM needed, and bitmaps for switches like whether or not the window should be closed when the program exits.

When the system was adapted for use under Windows, the developers faced the problem that there were additional switches that did not apply to TopView. Instead of simply adding the new switches to the end of the file, they instead re-imagined the file as a database file containing any number of entries. In theory the file consisted of a number of header areas describing what operating system should read the section, and an offset to the next section. Systems would read down the list until they found the most appropriate one.

PIF

Pif or PIF may refer to:

Government and politics

Popular culture

Science, engineering and technology

Pif (television host)

Pierfrancesco Diliberto, nicknamed Pif, is an Italian television host, film director, actor and writer.

Biography

Pif was born in Palermo, Italy on 4 June 1972. He is the son of the Italian director Maurizio Diliberto and has had a passion for cinema since his youth.

In 1998 he worked as assistant director to Marco Tullio Giordana for I cento passi (The Hundred Steps), a famous film against the mafia. In the same year he started working as a television author at Mediaset. In 2001 he started participating in Le Iene (The Hyenas), an Italian TV show with journalistic reporting characterized by a sharp satirical style.

In 2007 he started his own TV show, Il Testimone (The Witness), on MTV. In the show, he uses an Autovox to create amateur-like reports in Italy and abroad. In the same year he published his book Piffettopoli. Le fatiche di un quasi vip.

In 2012 he published the short story Sarà stata una fuga di gas (It Must Have Been a Gas Leak) in the book Dove eravamo. Vent'anni dopo Capaci e Via D'Amelio (Where We Were. Twenty Years After Capaci and Via D'Amelio), a miscellaneous volume celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the death of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two famous Sicilian judges who fought against the mafia and, after being assassinated, became symbols of the fight against the mafia in Italy.