text:
Irrealism (the arts)

Irrealism is a term that has been used by various writers in the fields of philosophy, literature, and art to denote specific modes of unreality and/or the problems in concretely defining reality. While in philosophy the term specifically refers to a position put forward by the American philosopher Nelson Goodman, in literature and art it refers to a variety of writers and movements. If the term has nonetheless retained a certain consistency in its use across these fields and would-be movements, it perhaps reflects the word's position in general English usage: though the standard dictionary definition of irreal gives it the same meaning as unreal, irreal is very rarely used in comparison with unreal. Thus, it has generally been used to describe something which, while unreal, is so in a very specific or unusual fashion, usually one emphasizing not just the "not real," but some form of estrangement from our generally accepted sense of reality.

Irrealism in literature
In literature, the term irrealism was first used extensively in the United States in the 1970s to describe the post-realist "new fiction" of writers such as Donald Barthelme or John Barth. More generally, it described the notion that all forms of writing could only "offer particular versions of reality rather than actual descriptions of it," and that a story need not offer a clear resolution at its end. John Gardner, in The Art of Fiction, cites in this context the work of Barthelme and its "seemingly limitless ability to manipulate [literary] techniques as modes of apprehension [which] apprehend nothing." Though Barth, in a 1974 interview, stated, "irrealism—not antirealism or unrealism, but irrealism—is all that I would confidently predict is likely to characterize the prose fiction of the 1970s," this did not prove to be the case. Instead writing in the United States quickly returned to its realist orthodoxy and the term irrealism fell into disuse.

In recent years, however, the term has been revived in an attempt to describe and categorize, in literary and philosophical terms, how it is that the work of an irrealist writer differs from the work of writers in other, non-realistic genres (e.g., the fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien, the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez) and what the significance of this difference is. This can be seen in Dean Swinford's essay Defining irrealism: scientific development and allegorical possibility. Approaching the issue from a structuralist and narratological point of view, he has defined irrealism as a "peculiar mode of postmodern allegory" that has resulted from modernity's fragmentation and dismantling of the well-ordered and coherent medieval system of symbol and allegory. Thus a lion, when presented in a given context in medieval literature, could only be interpreted in a single, approved way. Contemporary literary theory, however, denies the attribution of such fixed meanings. According to Swinford, this change can be attributed in part to the fact that "science and technical culture have changed perceptions of the natural world, have significantly changed the natural world itself, thereby altering the vocabulary of symbols applicable to epistemological and allegorical attempts to understand it." Thus irreal works such as Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics and Jorge Luis Borges' Ficciones can be seen as an attempt to find a new allegorical language to explain our changed perceptions of the world that have been brought about by our scientific and technical culture, especially concepts such as quantum physics or the theory of relativity. "The Irrealist work, then, operates within a given system," writes Swinford, "and attests to its plausibility, despite the fact that this system, and the world it represents, is often a mutation, an aberration."

The online journal The Cafe Irreal, on the other hand, has defined irrealism as being a type of existentialist literature in which the means are continually and absurdly rebelling against the ends that we have determined for them. An example of this would be Franz Kafka's story The Metamorphosis, in which the salesman Gregor Samsa's plans for supporting his family and rising up in rank by hard work and determination are suddenly thrown topsy-turvy by his sudden and inexplicable transformation into a man-sized insect. Such fiction is said to emphasize the fact that human consciousness, being finite in nature, can never make complete sense of, or successfully order, a universe that is infinite in its aspects and possibilities. Which is to say: as much as we might try to order our world with a certain set of norms and goals (which we consider our real world), the paradox of a finite consciousness in an infinite universe creates a zone of irreality ("that which is beyond the real") that offsets, opposes, or threatens the real world of the human subject. Irrealist writing often highlights this irreality, and our strange fascination with it, by combining the unease we feel because the real world doesn't conform to our desires with the narrative quality of the dream state (where reality is constantly and inexplicably being undermined); it is thus said to communicate directly, "by feeling rather than articulation, the uncertainties inherent in human existence or, to put it another way... the irreconcilability between human aspiration and human reality." If the irreal story can be considered an allegory, then, it would be an allegory that is "so many pointers to an unknown meaning," in which the meaning is felt more than it is articulated or systematically analyzed.

Irrealism in art
Various writers have addressed the question of Irrealism in Art. Many salient observations on Irrealism in Art are found in Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art. Goodman himself produced some multimedia shows, one of which inspired by hockey and is entitled Hockey Seen: A Nightmare in Three Periods and Sudden Death.

Garret Rowlan, writing in The Cafe Irreal, writes that the malaise present in the work of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico, "which recalls Kafka, has to do with the sense of another world lurking, hovering like the long shadows that dominate de Chirico's paintings, which frequently depict a landscape at twilight's uncertain hour. Malaise and mystery are all by-products of the interaction of the real and the unreal, the rub and contact of two worlds caught on irrealism's shimmering surface."

The writer Dean Swinford, whose concept of irrealism was described at length in the section "Irrealism in Literature", wrote that the artist Remedios Varos, in her painting The Juggler, "creates a personal allegorical system which relies on the predetermined symbols of Christian and classical iconography. But these are quickly refigured into a personal system informed by the scientific and organized like a machine...in the Irreal work, allegory operates according to an altered, but constant and orderly iconographic system."

Artist Tristan Tondino claims "There is no specific style to Irrealist Art. It is the result of awareness that every human act is the result of the limitations of the world of the actor."

In Australia, the art journal the art life has recently detected the presence of a "New Irrealism" among the painters of that country, which is described as being an "approach to painting that is decidedly low key, deploying its effects without histrionic showmanship, while creating an eerie other world of ghostly images and abstract washes." What exactly constituted the "old" irrealism, they do not say.

Irrealist Art, Film and Music Edition
Irrealist Art Edition is a publishing company created in the 90s by contemporary plastic artist Frédéric Iriarte. Together with the Estonian poet, writer and art critic Ilmar Laaban, they developed their concept of Irrealism through several essays, exhibitions, projects, manifest and a book, "Irréalisation". Irrealist Art Edition ISBN 91-630-2304-0

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Irrealism (the arts)


text:
You have two cows

"You have two cows" is a political analogy and form of early 20th century American political satire to describe various economic systems of government. The setup of a typical joke of this kind is the assumption that the listener lives within a given system and has two cows, a very relatable occupation across countries and national boundaries. The punch line is what happens to the listener and the cows in the system; it offers a brief and humorous take on the subject or locale.

A newer variant of the joke cycle compares different peoples and countries.

History
An article in The Modern Language Journal lists the following classical ones:
 * Socialism: If you have two cows, the Government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
 * Communism: If you have two cows, Government takes both and then gives you some milk.
 * Fascism: If you have two cows, you keep the cows and give the milk to the Government; then the government sells you some milk.
 * New Dealism: If you have two cows, you shoot one and milk the other; then you pour the milk down the drain.
 * Nazism: If you have two cows, the Government shoots you and keeps the cows.
 * Capitalism: If you have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull.

Bill Sherk mentions that such lists circulated throughout the United States since around 1936 under the title "Parable of the Isms". A column in The Chicago Daily Tribune in 1938 attributes a version involving socialism, communism, fascism and New Dealism to an address by Silas Strawn to the Economic Club of Chicago on 29 November 1935.

Richard M Steers and Luciara Nardon in their book about global economy use the "two cows" metaphor to illustrate the concept of cultural differences. They write that jokes of the kind are considered funny because they are "realistic but exaggerated caricatures" of various cultures, and the pervasiveness of such jokes stems from the significant cultural differences. Steers and Nardon also state that others believe such jokes present cultural stereotypes and must be viewed with caution.

Notable variants
Jokes of this genre formed the base of a monologue by American comedian Pat Paulsen on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late 1960s. Satirising the satire, he appended this comment to capitalism: "...Then put both of them in your wife's name and declare bankruptcy." This material was later used as an element of his satirical US presidential campaign in 1968, and was included on his 1968 comedy album Pat Paulsen for President.

Enron scandal
The economics of the Enron scandal have been a target of the "two cows" joke, often describing the accounting fraud that took place in Enron's finances. Much of the beginning of the joke when used to describe Enron resembles the following:

The ending of the joke varies in most interactions. The magazine Wired in 2008 ended the joke with Enron selling one cow to buy a new president of the United States, that no balance sheet was provided with the annual report, and ultimately the public buying Enron's bull. In 2002, Power Engineering ended the joke by announcing Enron would start trading cows online using the platform COW (cows on web).

title: You have two cows


text:
Lightbulb joke

A lightbulb joke is a joke cycle that asks how many people of a certain group are needed to change, replace, or screw in a light bulb. Generally, the punch line answer highlights a stereotype of the target group. There are numerous versions of the lightbulb joke satirizing a wide range of cultures, beliefs, and occupations.

Early versions of the joke, popular in the late 1960s and the 1970s, were used to insult the intelligence of people, especially Poles ("Polish jokes"). For instance:

Although lightbulb jokes tend to be derogatory in tone (e.g., "How many drunkards..." / "Four: one to hold the light bulb and three to drink until the room spins"), the people targeted by them may take pride in the stereotypes expressed and are often themselves the jokes' originators, as in "How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb? One, we're very efficient but not funny." where the joke itself becomes a statement of ethnic pride. Lightbulb jokes applied to subgroups can be used to ease tensions between them.

Variations
Some versions of the joke are puns on the words "change" or "screw", or "light":

Lightbulb jokes are often responses to contemporary events. For example, the lightbulb may not need to be changed at all due to ongoing power outages.

The Village Voice held a $200 lightbulb joke contest around the time of the Iran hostage crisis, with the winning joke being:

Lightbulb jokes can also be about sports, teasing about their team's past, future, etc.

Lightbulb jokes can also be related to religious groups and denominations.

title: Lightbulb joke


text:
Talk:You have two cows

Old
I'm fairly sure this one predates the wide availability of the internet. I saw a version in the early 80's from my mother, who was working in a primary school at the time.

So did I, around 1987. It was actually a poster, with cartoon illustrations, and was "localised" to the UK, e.g. it had the Tory party, Labour party etc. as sections. -- DrBob

Shouldn't the intro in the article mention that this is where the name Tucows Inc. came from in 1993? I think that's the kind of info that belongs in an encyclopedia, especially this one. --isis 11:22 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)
 * "TUCOWS: The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software"

--

Two fragments I did not see how to integrate

Cows are chosen as "cow" is an inherently funny word.

Noticeably absent: Post-Modernism and many others...

-- Rednblu 06:43, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Do we need to keep the last "contribution?" If it was posted by an American about Mexicans or Blacks, I would not be happy with the poster. Nothing currently in the article sinks to that level. Pakaran 21:42, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What about Shit happens??? Examples:
 * Catholicism: "If shit happens I deserve it"
 * Judaism: "Why is this shit always happening to me?"
 * Comunism: "When shit happens, it is for everybody"
 * Televangelism: "Send money or shit will happen to you"
 * And my personal favourite...
 * Jehovah's witnesses: "Knock! Knock! Shit happens!"

~I think it would be nice and funny to have a Shit happens page, but maybe is offensive... Muriel Gottrop 16:25, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Surely "offensive" depends on your POV. Wikipedia is supposed to be NPOV. QED. HTH. HAND. Phil 16:48, Nov 7, 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't think it's offensive at all, despite being a (critical) catholic. I'm just afraid that we have people accusing us of attacking religion... Maybe we could make fun of all of them :) Muriel Gottrop

 * That has to be the best way :-) Phil 17:13, Nov 7, 2003 (UTC)

 * Ok, i'm going to do it! Muriel

In reference to "These definitions are examples of the first Internet jokes that circulated in the early days of the Internet."
Granted the "two cows" jokes have been around a long time, but it seems to me that they are predated by other joke series -- if jokes that were being circulated on paper in the '80s are considered to have antedated the Internet then the same must be said about jokes that were common on Usenet.

The jokes that come to mind are first, the ever lengthening list of lightbulb jokes and second, the jokes about a string in a bar. -- jbl

Why are these organized alphabetically? I seem to recall them being funnier when they were ordered as a political critique that got steadily more outrageous? 207.189.98.44 20:37, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is this how Tucows got its name?? -- Timwi 17:21, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

We need two cows in the pic, not one lonely cow. A cow and a bull will also do. Try some from Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense/ASCII cows. Jay 07:34, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think that this is unnecessary. The jokes pinpoint "faulty manipulation" instead of "fatal result". The picture shows the manipulation well. !!!!!!!!!219.147.208.231 08:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)!!!!!!!!!

Facfailed
I can't find the article on Featured article candidates where it should have been. But it isn't on Feature candidates/Archived nominations or Featured articles either, so it seems never to have been on the Featured article candidates page. Could the person wanting to nominate the article put it on the Wiki:FA canditates page and write there why s/he wants to nominate it? And then move the above notice as well to the article itself (where it should officially be)? Otherwise I'll remove the nominated notice. (By the way, I liked the article but I think it can still be made better.) Paul/laudaka (add me to your Y!M/AIM/etc. list if you like!) | Talk 17:27, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Found Sandy Georgia (Talk) 03:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Self-references
I just removed a joke on Wikipedia, for the second time. This one was funnier than the first one a few months ago, but it's not appropriate for the article space. It's an in-joke that's unfunny to anyone but Wikipedians, it's a form of "original research" since it's presumably made up by the contributor, and it also violates Avoid self-references. That said, I'm going to put it on BJAODN. Isomorphic 04:13, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You have two cows
(Contested - July 12)

Excellent piece. I copyedited some of it, but otherwise not a self-nom. Neutrality 02:30, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

 * Object. Article is mostly a list, and a sourcetext list at that. Snowspinner 02:33, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

 * Object. The list doesn't belong here.  Should give only a couple of examples, examining them in detail.  The non-list material is good, however.  195.167.169.36 09:10, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Object. This is an encyclopaedia, not a (very unfunny) joke book. Bmills 09:46, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Agree. If anything it demonstrates the strengths and power of referentiality of Wikipedia. Besides which some Wikipedians have a sense of humour. Nothing wrong with making the public aware of the fact. Sjc 12:53, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I wonder if it could be nominated again, now that we have an image and the jokes are gone? (Disclosure: I re-wrote most of the intro a while back so it's partly a self-nomination.) Lawrence Lavigne 07:16, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

The list of jokes really really has to go. It adds nothing to the article; Wikipedia is not a joke book. If anyone has a good reason why not, please say so... —Kate | Talk 05:25, 2004 Jul 27 (UTC)

 * You mean just this article or all articles listed under Category:Jokes ? Jay 09:45, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Not even this article - only the list of jokes.  —Kate | Talk 15:36, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)
 * Spend some time looking at the pages off of Category:Jokes, a number of them have lists of jokes within the article. If we're making the move to a "List of" article, we should do that universally. -FunnyMan 12:51, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * It's quite possible other articles also need fixing if they have lists as long as this one. In any case someone else has sorted this article out while I wasn't looking.  I wouldn't be surprised if the new List of "You have two cows" jokes found a home on VfD soon, since it really adds nothing to Wikipedia (the fact that there are other bad articles isn't justification for more, and I don't believe being "entertaining" is one of Wikipedia's aims).   —Kate | Talk 13:09, 2004 Aug 5 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add it there, we'll see how it fares. -FunnyMan 15:05, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * I wasn't planning to - it's not doing any harm now - but there are people who'd rather this whole article went away ;-)  —Kate | Talk 15:22, 2004 Aug 5 (UTC)
 * I'd rather a lot of things went away. It doesn't mean that they will, or even that it's a good idea.  I'll watch the new page carefully. -FunnyMan 18:05, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

I'll agree that a huge list does not belong in this article, but if you haven't noticed, lists of various kinds ARE a part of Wikipedia. For instance, List of song titles phrased as questions or List of songs whose main title appears more than twenty times in the lyrics. If music lovers can have that kind of list, I see no reason why we couldn't have a List of two cows jokes. If you'd prefer, there are quite a few of these that are (potentially) useful in the article they reference. Feel free to move them. Or perhaps just put them in a You have two cows/examples subpage. Please, though, don't just get rid of this list, a lot of it is entertaining. -FunnyMan 05:26, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, what about moving it to List of You have two cows jokes? They're currently several times longer than the useful parts of the article.   —Kate | Talk 15:36, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)
 * I'd have no problem with that, I suggested effectively the same idea in the post you replied to. -FunnyMan 12:51, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

We illustrate this with a picture of three cows? Photoshop anyone? DJ Clayworth 17:49, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Deletion of the Jokebook
Jimbo Wales has announced that he will be deleting the Jokebook from Wikibooks within 24 hours. See Wikibooks:Staff lounge. Uncle G 16:29, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Where are the jokes?
This article is a bit hard to understand if the jokes are talked about without being mentioned. I understand some of it because I heard some of the jokes (and was actually rather looking forward to reading them again because I forgot how exactly they went), but someone who hasn't won't have a clue what this is all about. Of course not a long list, but at least some. Else it makes no sense. DirkvdM 19:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The jokes were once moved to the Wikibooks jokebook, where they grew into a colossal collection that took several hours to read. But then the jokebook was deleted because it did not contribute to the ultimate goal of creating a source of free-content textbooks and manuals. This scenario has occured before: Wikipedians determine that a certain article or section is not needed and decide to move it to a sister project, which in turn deletes the material because Wikipedians don't entriely understand the purpose of the respective sister project. Perhaps we should add just a few of the most common jokes back into the article so that it will make sense to readers. Anyhow, Uncyclopedia, which uses the MediaWiki software but is not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, has a page about You have two cows jokes. --TantalumT e lluride 23:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

 * If you are really determined, you can look at an old edit such as this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=You_have_two_cows&oldid=4949336 Cheers Manning, the original instigator of this legendary bit of Wikipedia madness. (not logged in...

A Sad day for citing sources
What in the nine hells of Baator are we doing citing Uncyclopedia in this article? What are we doing citing it in any article? Has anyone even LOOKED at the article on uncyclopedia? It adds nothing to the article, and it should be possible to find better, actually citable sources that help the reader understand the topic. --The1exile - Talk - Contribs - 19:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * What in the infinite layers of the Abyss are you doing complaining about it on the talk page instead of editing the article? And have you tried finding those sources yet? The talk namespace is cheap... 82.92.119.11 14:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The You have two cows article can actually be looked at as a huge example list of you have two cows jokes. It solves the problem of having a list in here yet gives examples of You have two cows jokes. I see no reason for it's removal just because it's from a site you don't find the majority of stuff on funny.(To be honest a lot of stuff on there isn't funny sometimes to me eigther, but not always, Two cows is a Gem mostly.) at the very least, a link to this catagory of it http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/You_have_two_cows/17 fits in more with the traditional versions of the joke. -Sgore 21:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Not a list of jokes
User: Deltabeignet Originally deleted the giant list of jokes, then added two examples back. I do not believe a list of... forty "two cow" jokes really helps Wikipedia be an encyclopedia. I am removing them again, and upon re-addition without discussion, I will contact an admin for mediation. --DevastatorIIC 18:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Okay, but we need at least ONE cow joke. We have the ridiculous situation of an article about a type of joke with no examples of the joke.  This is ridiculous.   Techno Faye Kane  20:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

how about an image to illustrate the jokes?
I first heard these as a political cartoon hanging in my HS history teacher's room. The cartoon illustrated 5 or 6 political ideologies (communism, socialism, fascism, capitalism) with the 2 cows. The jokes had a cold-war slant, with capitalism being the punchline (...buy a bull!). I think one way to end constant edit wars with those wishing to add dozens of variations is to include an image illustrating the jokes. I couldn't find a copy of the one I remember online, but it would be relatively easy to recreate it (thus also avoiding any copyvio issues). --Alcuin 03:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of most content
User:Light current deleted most of the content of this article without explanation. Was it because this article refers to a joke? This article is about a joke (one that is well known and common enough to warrant an article of its own, apparently). Rather than decimating the content of the article, perhaps User:Light current would like to submit this article for AfD in its original form. I propose that the original content of this article before User:Light current's recent modifications be restored. --Ghewgill 02:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

 * The complete article is unencyclopedic. Yes please restore it if you like, then put it up for AfD.--Light current 03:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Done, thanks. --Ghewgill 09:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Light current, why did you do this? If it's "unencyclopedic", explain why- don't just remove content. Friday (talk) 01:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:STALK? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Light current (talk • contribs).
 * The comments above are none of "nitpicking good-faith edits to different articles, repeated personal attacks or posting personal information"; your allegation of harassment is invalid. Ibanix 21:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Lack of Content
This article doesn't seem to actually tell us anything about the jokes - like where did they come from. By the nature of the joke, I would assume it comes from some time during the cold war, as it is essentially designed to show how bad other economic systems are, and ends with a clever bit which also shows how great capitalism is. - Matthew238 05:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Sentence without an ending
The final para has a sentence that doesn't end. I can't edit it because I don't know how it should have ended. How people portray different ideologies depends often, entirely on their. Any suggestions? --Rhi 14:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Removed paragraph
Bad original research. People owned (and still own) cows in communism, so the central premise of the the paragraph is false. GregorB 16:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be a negatory, GregorB. Under actual Communism, people do not own the cows; the state does. As for theoretical communism, there are as many different versions as there are communists; but for the most part, even at its most lenient, it's not 'ownership' but sharing. -LlywelynII (talk) 15:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

This dates from at least the late '60s - c'mon, no one remembers Pat Paulsen?
I had always thought that the definitive "you have two cows" routine was a monologue by Pat Paulsen (think proto-Ben Stein) on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, later included on his album Pat Paulsen for President, part of his parody campaign for the US Presidency in 1968 (think proto-Stephen Colbert). Truly hilarious.

I'm stunned no one has mentioned this earlier; I figured this routine was quite well-known, even nearly four decades later. Excuse me while I go chase the kids off my lawn.--NapoliRoma (talk) 01:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED: How much of this section is quote vs. paraphrase?
My goodness this portion is awkward; I would Be Bold, except I am unfamiliar with the source material and therefore would be concerned I had edited it incorrectly:

 * Richard M. Steers and Luciara Nardon in their book about global economy use the "two cows" metaphor to illustrate the concept of cultural differences. They write that jokes of this kind:[9]

 * '' * Russian company: You have two cows. You drink some vodka and count them again. You have five cows. The Russian Mafia shows up and takes however many cows you have.
 * ''* Californian company: You have a million cows. Most of them are illegals.

 * ''These are funny because they are realistic caricatures of various cultures, and the pervasiveness of such jokes stems from the significant cultural differences. They further say that others argue that such jokes present cultural stereotypes and must be viewed with caution.

First problem - "They write that jokes of this kind"... that jokes of this kind WHAT? This appears to be a poor phrasing, of what should actually be "They write of jokes of this kind:", but could someone please clarify?

Second problem: "These are funny..." this immediately struck me as POV, until it ocurred to me that it may be from a quote. As in - was it originally a quote? In which case it should be formatted as such; however,if the text was intended to be a paraphrase, it should read more like "They argue that these are funny..."

Third problem: even if the "these are funny" portion is a quote, "They further say that..." is clearly either a paraphrase, or a quote with lead that is also mis-formatted.

This is sloppy-looking, ungrammatical and also terribly confusing for the reader, to whom it will also come across as POV. Someone familiar with the source material NEEDS to fix this, pronto. 68.18.55.19 (talk) 00:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Discussion on Sources
The following sources linked to pro quest where I have a subscription. "Guevarra, Argee", "Melnick, Rick", and "Insider Column. Thailand," I have tried searching the Authors name, tried to find the journal, and tried the Proquest document ID and nothing.

I did find the enronism avenue of the americas article, but it is just a telling of a joke in an editorial page, not a discussion of the joke. The "Texan Bull" is a re-telling of the same Enron joke in the same Financial Times publication. Again, no discussion of the joke, on a joke. TharsHammar Bits andPieces 15:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Potential further sources
brief mentions from google scholar: Mostly historical uses, but might help. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1892 math primer - possible example of satire source? First Steps in Number: A Primary ... - Google Book Search
 * 1938-39, mentioned in numerous periodicals as "doing the rounds currently". eg. Commercial Telegraphers' Journal. - Google Book Search, and The China monthly review - Google Book Search which suggests it was originally published by The Sun (New York).
 * 1952 - The art of communicating ideas - Google Book Search
 * British Parliamentary debates (Hansard). - Google Book Search -
 * House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Feb 1990, found at : House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Feb 1990
 * Possibly in 1967 too: "You have two cows" hansard - Google Book Search
 * Atlas: Second International Conference on Smarandache Type Notions In Mathematics and Quantum Physics - Abstracts
 * Beyond the laboratory: scientists as ... - Google Book Search

 * Note: Some explanatory text was deleted from this article in 2006 (as noted far above). It might be helpful to restore this, if supporting citations can be found, rather than rewriting from scratch. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

 * Just been watching The Plane Makers, an ATV drama from 1963. One character uses the 'two cows' political definitions in the episode 'Don't Stick Your Head Out', TX 14 October 1963. Sam Blacketer (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The Modern Language Journal
The full relevant excerpt of the 1944 article, reads:
 * "Isms Isolated. [section title]
 * The following definitions of isms, used in a political campaign in Chicago some years ago, are obviously unorthodox, but they are unusually specific, anything but abstract, and of telegraphic brevity. The objection to them is simply that they have something to "sell," something else to condemn, and that volumes pro and con have been written about these things. The definitions are: Socialism-If you have two cows, you give one to your neighbor. Communism-If you have two cows, you give them to the Government and the Government then gives you some milk. Fascism-If you have two cows, you keep the cows and give the milk to the Government; then the Government sells you some milk. New Dealism-If you have two cows, you shoot one and milk the other; then you pour the milk down the drain. Naziism-If you have two cows, the Government shoots you and keeps the cows. Capitalism-If you have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull."

For future reference. (Also, our sentence introducing these examples, from this source, needs to be improved.) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:26, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Picture caption
Currently it reads "Two bovine animals possibly grazing what may be a field". Anyone want to propose a more reasonable one? 198.179.147.171 (talk) 16:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

 * Now it's just 'Two cows' but the French article has a much better caption: "Voici vos deux vaches…" "Here are your two cows..." (Tout sonne mieux en français.) Snezzy (talk) 12:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I actually, in my quest to appease that one IP who seems to be very picky, gave it a more serious and relevant caption. ViperSnake151   Talk  14:51, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

More Ideas
I found this, maybe you could use it? http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/You_have_two_cows — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.72.162.61 (talk) 03:57, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Modern progressive spin, might be useful as an example
Parable of the Isms or, you have to cows - https://dr-s.medium.com/parable-of-the-isms-or-you-have-two-cows-3cf2933a295d — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.168.163.100 (talk • contribs)

 * The author, a Mike Sosteric, supposedly a sociologist. But he appears to have a poor grasp of history and politology. From his text it seems he is a leftist, but he got even Communism (in Marxist meaning, too) wrong.
 * If this is what "progressive spin" means, I would feel worried for the progress. Lembit Staan (talk) 21:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, the original Landers version was a right-wing version distributed by a capitalist corporation in a capitalist country, so I'm not sure why you'd be invoking political orientation as a criticism. As for the rest, the history of Capitalism is the history of capitalist's taking things (enclosure, slavery, colonialism, imperialism), Fascism is typically characterized by a tight relationship between private capital and government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism), Nazism clearly creates "evil" enemies for the poor to target, and a defining characteristic of Communism is the abolition of the state. Isn't disbanding the state exactly what Marx and others (Engel) said would happen after society learned to distribute wealth and resources properly? Socialism is a period where the state, as an extension of the arm of people and not capital, becomes concerned not with creating and enforcing laws but with "optimal allocation of resources". After a certain period, the people relearn how to do that for themselves, the state ceases to matter, and communisms, a stateless society self-ruled by "the people" living in small groups (i.e., communities/communes/communism), comes into being. There are some theoretical differences in Marxist writers on the transition between socialism and communism, some suggest a "withering away" of the state, and some suggest abolition, but in communism, the state is definitely gone, vanished, kaput, and no more.

Sure, the parable is a simplification. But so is the Lander's version. Sure the parable takes a political stand, but so does the Lander's version. Lander's basically messages that Capitalism is superior--debatable. This other messages the superiority of communism--also debatable. That is the exact point of these little things though, isn't it? To teach a particular world view. To convey political and cultural meaning. To be completely fair and unbiased, wouldn't Wikipedia have to acknowledge these things and provide examples from all "rays" in the political spectrum?

I confess, I'm neither a historian nor a political scientist, so certainly others know more about history and politology and the use of the "two cows" meme than I. That said, I offer this as a decent example of exactly what these parable thingies do, and a useful example of how they can be used to convey different political perspectives. I shall respectfully leave this in the hands of the God's (of Wikipedia).
 * Well, mine was just a grumble. But it was not criticism of his political views, but of his ignorance (not just simplification; For starters, under "real" communism, you do not have two cows as a means of production: all means of production are common. What described in discussed the parable is a primitive natural economy, which productivity cannot possibly satisfy "to each according to his needs", unless we delve into some naive science fiction where the cowpunchers are robots, but then you don't need two cows at all).
 * Now, my personal judgments of the discussed text aside, are his examples suitable for wikipedia ? - No, according to Wikipedia policies. Unlike the "capitalist" ones, these examples are not discussed in relieable independent secondary sources. Witticisms of a single person are undue for an encyclopedia: there are hundreds of pairs of cows in the media, but we did not include them here for the reason I explained. Lembit Staan (talk) 17:41, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

 * I mean, the original version's bias was ridiculously far to the right – as economic systems go, the New Deal system, being solidly capitalist, and less left-leaning even than the social-democratic systems in mid-to-late-20th-century Europe, is best classified as slightly right of centre at least. To the likes of Silas Strawn, FDR was evidently a commie, and "New Dealism" an intolerably extreme system, but with its global perspective, political science does not agree. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:04, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, if you take the two cows as a stand-in for the means of production in general, the analogy works again. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:08, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

"Yes, but as i said earlier, "establishing that this extension is worth noting here requires a secondary source")"
The text in question has nothing about extension. It is an explanation of the meaning of these jokes, refernced from a scholarly book. YOu cannot dismiss serious boooks lightly. - Altenmann >talk 17:16, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Altenmann objects to the removal of a paragraph which, as far as I'm concerned, is an unwarranted extension of the topic: "Richard M Steers and Luciara Nardon in their book about global economy use the "two cows" metaphor to illustrate the concept of cultural differences." But the main topic is a piece of political satire, not the metaphor itself. Altenmann added the content a lifetime ago, here, and reverted my deletion of the material, saying "restored info referencred from a bokk". Well, the book in question is a non-notable book by two non-notable writers, and I maintain that if this content is to be relevant to this article, it would need a secondary source that explains how the comment in that book matters to the primary topic of the political two cows satire. Altenmann has not addressed that in their two reverts. Drmies (talk) 18:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I wouldnt call authors nonnotable: "Dr. Luciara Nardon is a Professor of International Business and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Inclusion at Work (CRIW) at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business", i.e., has relevant expertise. - Altenmann >talk 19:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * main topic is a piece of political satire, not the metaphor itself, - well, you are splitting hairs, colleague. The "pece of satire" in question is the "metaphor itself". And regardless how you describe it, the book in question explains why these jokes look funny and that they a not necessarily a faithful depiction of the mocked subjects. I.e., it is a nontrivial contribution to the article I added "a lifetime ago" (BTW, what relation this sniggering comment would have to the subject?).- Altenmann >talk 19:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:You have two cows


text:
Talk:Internet humor

Untitled
Removed:

 * A landmark for internet humor, particularly that related to gaming, came in 1998 when Gamefoolz was created.

Sorry, but that claim's just not going to wash without some good evidence. Frankly, I doubt you'll be able to provide it, seeing that truly groundbreaking sites tend to get discovered and publicised by the mainstream media at some stage (Wikipedia, for instance :) ) and none of the long-time contributors here seem to ever have heard of Gamefoolz before. --Robert Merkel

Good call, Robert. Now, I've loosely supported the notion of the Gamefoolz article on Wikipedia, but if they start pulling stuff like this, I'm going to get annoyed. -- Jimbo Wales

I agree completely... --LMS

What's up with all these / pages of jokes? I say we should move all these / pages to the meta but keep the article on internet humor. --maveric149

maveric - if you want the real reason for this page, it was the result of an off-'pedia discussion between Larry and I about "what would generate traffic". Fact is, these pages do generate hits. More importantly, there really isn't a truly dynamic resource for internet humour (as defined here) anywhere on the web, and it does deserve to be recognised. I'd like to keep it. Obviously the backslash dates from the days when that was our only alternative. - User:MMGB

If its OK with you its OK with me (following my above reasoning somebody else might want to remove the Wikipedia Cookbook which is only marginally encyclopedic). Pages still need some TLC though. --maveric149

Well, considering long-standing humour with good evidentiary backing, I was surprised that it had no reference to collaborative humour on the Internet, which is the first thing I think about when I hear the phrase "Internet humour." Generally, stuff that starts out in some newsgroup and grows into a recognized subculture. The Internet Oracle, The Jargon File, Kibology. Anybody remember other long-running communities defined around humour on the internet such as the above? I also put in a new article on the Oracle. It's sort of sketchy, and could use a lot of rounding out. --mzamora

Copied over from Votes for deletion:

 * All the subpages of Internet humor which are pure source texts should be removed or replaced with external links to the content. In any case, the subpages must go. --Eloquence 00:09 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * Seconded. -- Minesweeper 04:12 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * No. (If we're going to use absolute language.) You do realize the "all subpages must go" phrase is a parody of people being unreasonable, right? --The Cunctator 04:57 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * We have a policy against subpages. You don't have to like it - just follow it. --Eloquence 10:39 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * I vote no to the removal of source texts. If you replace the pages with links then you can be certain that at some time in the future the link will break. Why do want to lose them? As far as sub pages go, I vote yes. Let them have a proper page. Theresa knott 08:04 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not mere collections of public domain or other source material. This is a well-established policy. Possibly future broken links is the trade-off we accept in using this policy. -- Minesweeper 10:37 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * I propose we move them to meta. This gives us the benefit of making it clear that wikipedia is an encyclopedia, while avoiding the potential downside of broken links. Then the internet humor page can reference the pages on meta as examples. Btw, the two cows page, at least, has been edited on Wikipedia a bit, so it's probably GFDL, not public domain. Martin
 * Meta is not a place to dump articles that are unrelated to Wikipedia itself. What you are looking for is something like the mythical Project Sourceberg, a place to store source material. An official, maintained site for this purpose does not yet exist. --Eloquence 23:05 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * These articles are related to the Wikipedia article on internet humor, and therefore to Wikipedia. Martin
 * I disagree too. Subpages are sure against our policy then we just need to move them. Certainly we need some kind of repository system to keep some important text but since we don't have one, it is our compromise that we keep certain text. We cannot rely on the sites outside wikipedia keep those texts. -- Taku 03:03 21 May 2003 (UTC)
 * That is not "our compromise", it is against our policy. I see no reason to make an exception for the George W. Bush lexicon but not for the US constitution -- see arguments below. In fact, making such an exception could be interpreted as a POV choice on our part: Making fun of Dubya is so important that we need to preserve all source material that does so, whereas Shakespeare, Goethe, national laws and constitutions, historical speeches, free manuals and so forth all pale in comparison to the infinite wisdom of Internet humorists. --Eloquence 06:04 21 May 2003 (UTC)
 * OK you've made a fair point minesweeper. I don't think it would be right to discuss these pages as a group ss I'm listing them individually. Some of the pages are not just source material but contain some original text as well. So lets do 'em one at a time.Theresa knott 10:59 20 May 2003 (UTC)

[... subpages voted for deletion listed here ...]

 * Of these, the only ones I see worth saving (and moving) are Goodtimes Virus Warning, Lightbulb jokes, and You have two cows (although those last two could be trimmed down). -- Minesweeper 11:12 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * I've indicated my thoughts above, but I would say that the contensts should be copied to Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense rather than lost.
 * I disagree. I see no good reason to delete just about any of these. Better entries should be written, based off of the content (e.g. You have two cows), but they are all useful and interesting starting points. --The Cunctator 22:50 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * No, there's no reason to delete them, if you ignore our policies on source texts and subpages. However, since these policies are established, any argument that ignores them without successfully changing the policies first is null and void. --Eloquence 23:05 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * The What Wikipedia is not guidelines are just that: guidelines, subordinate to the goal of creating a good, complete, and consistent encyclopedia. They are not gospel (like the principles of neutrality, self-identification as an encyclopedia, and open content are). Thus individual cases should be viewed within that context. What purpose does having these entries serve? In the case of the Internet humor pages, they are distinguished primarily by the fact that this is an area of knowledge in which traditional paper encyclopedias are particularly deficient. Although Wikipedia should not be a repository of source documents, Wikipedians should not feel constrained by ex cathedra laws to use their judgment to determine the degree that including source material is useful and necessary. Wikipedia is a living document, and the guidelines are meant to reflect best practices as much as they are to shape them. --The Cunctator 23:19 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * The guidelines are not subordinate to the goal, they are a reflection thereof. They have been formulated and agreed upon with the specific idea that following these guidelines will improve our encyclopedia. Without justification calling into question these principles for each individual case is not only counter-productive, it is also annoying. If we are to make an exception to any individual rule, such an exception needs to be well qualified, and the qualification itself should then become part of our guidelines. For the case at hand, there is no particular reason to ignore or amend our established policies. It is true that Wikipedia knows more about Internet humor than the Britannica; it also knows more about Linux, yet we do not import the entire set of Linux HOWTOs, arguably much more factual information and readily available under compatible licenses. We do not even import relevant political speeches or essays. Why have we formed this policy? Simply because an openly editable encyclopedia is not particularly useful for mirroring static content, where authenticity is of very high importance. This is also the case for these humor articles, because if the source texts are collaboratively edited we diverge from the goal of documenting what is known to the separate goal of creating new "knowledge", which is not what an encyclopedia is meant to do. I am a supporter of the Sourceberg idea (though I dislike the name), but Wikipedia is not such a source repository. If we don't store crucial political texts or literary works that are freely available, the rationale for including George W. Bush jokes and chain letters is much weaker still. Your argument thus has no merit whatsoever. --Eloquence 23:39 20 May 2003 (UTC)
 * I mostly agree with Minesweepers assesment, though George W. Bush lexicon looks like it could be remade into "Texas Slang" or something similar. -- Infrogmation 06:39 23 May 2003 (UTC)

After a week of discussion, most of the subpages were deleted and the rest moved. Encyclopedic information in Goodtimes Virus Warning was already in Goodtimes virus. Former subpages that remain (and have been moved) are You have two cows, Lightbulb joke, and Honor system virus. -- Minesweeper 07:24 27 May 2003 (UTC)

--

Do we need to link to every site that hosts a copy of the million of old jokes around? Anyone against original content? And, what's with the descriptions like "best humor site"? Is that the official wikipedia opinion? Some links lead to sites that are not working. And, if your site is pop-up hell you really think you should get a link from here? I deleted a whole load of external links. More should really go if someone else has the heart. MansonP
 * They were probably spam, so thanks for removing them. Wmahan. 05:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

References section
http://www.funnyx.org Lindarx (talk) 12:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I removed a link to http://www.jokes.org.au/ in the References section, but my change was reverted without explanation. I don't see how it belongs as a reference, since I don't see it mentioned in the article. Wmahan. 17:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction
saying that the darwin awards are internet humor is a contradiction due to the fact that they have a copyright. (ie, you cant use the exact text from www.darwinawards.com) and it states earlier in the artical that this would be "humor on the internet" not "internet humor"Bummerdude62 23:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Internet humor


text:
International Electrotechnical Commission

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; Commission électrotechnique internationale) is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology". IEC standards cover a vast range of technologies from power generation, transmission and distribution to home appliances and office equipment, semiconductors, fibre optics, batteries, solar energy, nanotechnology and marine energy as well as many others. The IEC also manages four global conformity assessment systems that certify whether equipment, system or components conform to its international standards.

All electrotechnologies are covered by IEC Standards, including energy production and distribution, electronics, magnetics and electromagnetics, electroacoustics, multimedia, telecommunication and medical technology, as well as associated general disciplines such as terminology and symbols, electromagnetic compatibility, measurement and performance, dependability, design and development, safety and the environment.

History
The first International Electrical Congress took place in 1881 at the  International Exposition of Electricity, held in Paris. At that time the International System of Electrical and Magnetic Units was agreed to.

The International Electrotechnical Commission held its inaugural meeting on 26 June 1906, following discussions among the British Institution of Electrical Engineers, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and others, which began at the 1900 Paris International Electrical Congress,, with British engineer R. E. B. Crompton playing a key role. In 1906, Lord Kelvin was elected as the first President of the International Electrotechnical Commission. The IEC was instrumental in developing and distributing standards for units of measurement, particularly the gauss, hertz, and weber. It was also first to promote the Giorgi System of standards, later developed into the SI, or Système International d'unités (in English, the International System of Units).

In 1938, it published a multilingual international vocabulary to unify terminology relating to electrical, electronic and related technologies. This effort continues, and the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary is published online as the Electropedia.

The CISPR (Comité International Spécial des Perturbations Radioélectriques) – in English, the International Special Committee on Radio Interference – is one of the groups founded by the IEC.

Currently, 89 countries are IEC members while another 85 participate in the Affiliate Country Programme, which is not a form of membership but is designed to help industrializing countries get involved with the IEC. Originally located in London, United Kingdom, the IEC moved to its current headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland in 1948.

It has regional centres in Africa (Nairobi, Kenya), Asia (Singapore), Oceania (Sydney, Australia), Latin America (São Paulo, Brazil) and North America (Worcester, Massachusetts, United States).

The work is done by some 10,000 electrical and electronics experts from industry, government, academia, test labs and others with an interest in the subject.

IEC Standards are often adopted as national standards by its members.

IEC Standards
The IEC cooperates closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). In addition, it works with several major standards development organizations, including the IEEE with which it signed a cooperation agreement in 2002, which was amended in 2008 to include joint development work.

IEC Standards that are not jointly developed with ISO have numbers in the range 60000–79999 and their titles take a form such as IEC 60417: Graphical symbols for use on equipment. Following the Dresden Agreement with CENELEC the numbers of older IEC standards were converted in 1997 by adding 60000, for example IEC 27 became IEC 60027. Standards of the 60000 series are also found preceded by EN to indicate that the IEC standard is also adopted by CENELEC as a European standard; for example IEC 60034 is also available as EN 60034.

Standards developed jointly with ISO, such as ISO/IEC 26300 (Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0), ISO/IEC 27001 (Information technology, Security techniques, Information security management systems, Requirements), and ISO/IEC 17000 series, carry the acronym of both organizations. The use of the ISO/IEC prefix covers publications from ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 – Information Technology, as well as conformity assessment standards developed by ISO CASCO (Committee on conformity assessment) and IEC CAB (Conformity Assessment Board). Other standards developed in cooperation between IEC and ISO are assigned numbers in the 80000 series, such as IEC 82045–1.

IEC Standards are also being adopted by other certifying bodies such as BSI (United Kingdom), CSA (Canada), UL & ANSI/INCITS (United States), SABS (South Africa), Standards Australia, SPC/GB (China) and DIN (Germany). IEC standards adopted by other certifying bodies may have some noted differences from the original IEC standard.

Membership and participation

The IEC is made up of members, called national committees, and each NC represents its nation's electrotechnical interests in the IEC. This includes manufacturers, providers, distributors and vendors, consumers and users, all levels of governmental agencies, professional societies and trade associations as well as standards developers from national standards bodies. National committees are constituted in different ways. Some NCs are public sector only, some are a combination of public and private sector, and some are private sector only. About 90% of those who prepare IEC standards work in industry. IEC Member countries include:

Full members

 * 🇩🇿 Algeria
 * 🇦🇷 Argentina
 * 🇦🇺 Australia
 * 🇦🇹 Austria
 * 🇧🇾 Belarus
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium
 * 🇧🇷 Brazil
 * 🇧🇬 Bulgaria
 * 🇨🇦 Canada
 * 🇨🇴 Colombia
 * 🇨🇱 Chile
 * 🇨🇳 China
 * 🇭🇷 Croatia
 * 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
 * 🇩🇰 Denmark
 * 🇪🇬 Egypt
 * 🇫🇮 Finland
 * 🇫🇷 France
 * 🇩🇪 Germany
 * 🇬🇷 Greece
 * 🇭🇺 Hungary
 * 🇮🇳 India
 * 🇮🇩 Indonesia
 * 🇮🇷 Iran
 * 🇮🇶 Iraq
 * 🇮🇪 Ireland
 * 🇮🇱 Israel
 * 🇮🇹 Italy
 * 🇯🇵 Japan
 * 🇰🇼 Kuwait
 * 🇱🇾 Libya
 * 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
 * 🇲🇾 Malaysia
 * 🇲🇽 Mexico
 * 🇳🇱 Netherlands
 * 🇳🇿 New Zealand
 * 🇳🇬 Nigeria
 * 🇳🇴 Norway
 * 🇴🇲 Oman
 * 🇵🇰 Pakistan
 * Perú
 * 🇵🇭 Philippines
 * 🇵🇱 Poland
 * 🇵🇹 Portugal
 * 🇶🇦 Qatar
 * 🇷🇴 Romania
 * 🇷🇺 Russia
 * 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
 * 🇷🇸 Serbia
 * 🇸🇬 Singapore
 * 🇸🇰 Slovakia
 * 🇸🇮 Slovenia
 * 🇰🇷 South Korea
 * 🇿🇦 South Africa
 * 🇪🇸 Spain
 * 🇸🇪 Sweden
 * 🇨🇭 Switzerland
 * 🇹🇭 Thailand
 * 🇹🇷 Turkey
 * 🇺🇦 Ukraine
 * 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
 * 🇺🇸 United States
 * 🇳🇵 Nepal

Associate members (limited voting and managerial rights)

 * 🇦🇱 Albania
 * 🇧🇭 Bahrain
 * 🇧🇩 Bangladesh
 * Bosnia & Herzegovina
 * 🇨🇺 Cuba
 * 🇨🇾 Cyprus
 * Democratic People's Republic of Korea
 * 🇪🇪 Estonia
 * 🇪🇹 Ethiopia
 * Georgia
 * 🇬🇭 Ghana
 * 🇮🇸 Iceland
 * 🇯🇴 Jordan
 * 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan
 * 🇰🇪 Kenya
 * 🇱🇻 Latvia
 * 🇱🇹 Lithuania
 * North Macedonia
 * 🇲🇹 Malta
 * 🇲🇩 Moldova
 * 🇲🇪 Montenegro
 * 🇲🇦 Morocco
 * 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
 * 🇹🇳 Tunisia
 * Vietnam
 * 🇺🇬 Uganda

Affiliates
In 2001 and in response to calls from the WTO to open itself to more developing nations, the IEC launched the Affiliate Country Programme to encourage developing nations to become involved in the commission's work or to use its International Standards. Countries signing a pledge to participate in the work and to encourage the use of IEC Standards in national standards and regulations are granted access to a limited number of technical committee documents for the purposes of commenting. In addition, they can select a limited number of IEC Standards for their national standards' library. Countries participating in the Affiliate Country Programme are:

 * Afghanistan
 * Angola
 * Antigua and Barbuda
 * Armenia
 * Azerbaijan
 * Barbados
 * Belize
 * Benin
 * Bhutan
 * Bolivia
 * Botswana
 * Brunei
 * Burkina Faso
 * Burundi
 * Cabo Verde
 * Cambodia
 * Cameroon
 * Central African Republic
 * Chad
 * Comoros
 * Congo (Rep. of)
 * Congo (Democratic Rep. of)
 * Costa Rica
 * Côte d'Ivoire
 * Dominica
 * Dominican Republic
 * Ecuador
 * El Salvador
 * Eritrea
 * Eswatini
 * Fiji
 * Gabon
 * Grenada
 * Guatemala
 * Guinea
 * Guinea Bissau
 * Guyana
 * Haiti
 * Honduras
 * Jamaica
 * Kyrgyzstan
 * Laos
 * Lebanon
 * Lesotho
 * Madagascar
 * Malawi
 * Mali
 * Mauritania
 * Mauritius
 * Mongolia
 * Mozambique
 * Myanmar
 * Namibia
 * Nepal
 * Niger
 * Palestine
 * Panama
 * Papua New Guinea
 * Paraguay
 * Rwanda
 * Saint Lucia
 * Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
 * São Tomé and Príncipe
 * Senegal
 * Seychelles
 * Sierra Leone
 * South Sudan
 * Sudan
 * Suriname
 * Syrian Arab Republic
 * Tanzania
 * The Gambia
 * Togo
 * Trinidad and Tobago
 * Turkmenistan
 * Uruguay
 * Uzbekistan
 * Venezuela
 * Yemen
 * Zambia
 * Zimbabwe

Technical information

 * Graphical Symbols
 * Hydraulic Turbines
 * Switchgear
 * Dependability
 * Power Systems Management
 * Fibre Optics
 * Audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment

Standards and tools published in database format

 * International Electrotechnical Vocabulary
 * IEC Glossary
 * IEC 60061: Lamp caps, lampholders and gauges
 * IEC 60417 Graphical Symbols for Use on Equipment
 * IEC 60617: Graphical Symbols for Diagrams


text:
ISO 9660

ISO 9660 (also known as ECMA-119) is a file system for optical disc media. The file system is an international standard available from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Since the specification is available for anybody to purchase, implementations have been written for many operating systems.

ISO 9660 traces its roots to the High Sierra Format, which arranged file information in a dense, sequential layout to minimize nonsequential access by using a hierarchical (eight levels of directories deep) tree file system arrangement, similar to UNIX and FAT. To facilitate cross platform compatibility, it defined a minimal set of common file attributes (directory or ordinary file and time of recording) and name attributes (name, extension, and version), and used a separate system use area where future optional extensions for each file may be specified. High Sierra was adopted in December 1986 (with changes) as an international standard by Ecma International as ECMA-119 and submitted for fast tracking to the ISO, where it was eventually accepted as ISO 9660:1988. Subsequent amendments to the standard were published in 2013 and 2020.

The first 16 sectors of the file system are empty and reserved for other uses. The rest begins with a volume descriptor set (a header block which describes the subsequent layout) and then the path tables, directories and files on the disc. An ISO 9660 compliant disc must contain at least one primary volume descriptor describing the file system and a volume descriptor set terminator which is a volume descriptor that marks the end of the descriptor set. The primary volume descriptor provides information about the volume, characteristics and metadata, including a root directory record that indicates in which sector the root directory is located. Other fields contain metadata such as the volume's name and creator, along with the size and number of logical blocks used by the file system. Path tables summarize the directory structure of the relevant directory hierarchy. For each directory in the image, the path table provides the directory identifier, the location of the extent in which the directory is recorded, the length of any extended attributes associated with the directory, and the index of its parent directory path table entry.

There are several extensions to ISO 9660 that relax some of its limitations. Notable examples include Rock Ridge (Unix-style permissions and longer names), Joliet (Unicode, allowing non-Latin scripts to be used), El Torito (enables CDs to be bootable) and the Apple ISO 9660 Extensions (file characteristics specific to the classic Mac OS and macOS, such as resource forks, file backup date and more).

History
Compact discs were originally developed for recording musical data, but soon were used for storing additional digital data types because they were equally effective for archival mass data storage. Called CD-ROMs, the lowest level format for these type of compact discs was defined in the Yellow Book specification in 1983. However, this book did not define any format for organizing data on CD-ROMs into logical units such as files, which led to every CD-ROM maker creating its own format. In order to develop a CD-ROM file system standard (Z39.60 - Volume and File Structure of CDROM for Information Interchange), the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) set up Standards Committee SC EE (Compact Disc Data Format) in July 1985. In September/ October 1985 several companies invited experts to participate in the development of a working paper for such a standard.

In November 1985, representatives of computer hardware manufacturers gathered at the High Sierra Hotel and Casino (currently called the Golden Nugget Lake Tahoe) in Stateline, Nevada. This group became known as the High Sierra Group (HSG). Present at the meeting were representatives from Apple Computer, AT&T, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Hitachi, LaserData, Microware, Microsoft, 3M, Philips, Reference Technology Inc., Sony Corporation, TMS Inc., VideoTools (later Meridian ), Xebec, and Yelick. The meeting report evolved from the Yellow Book CD-ROM standard, which was so open ended it was leading to diversification and creation of many incompatible data storage methods. The High Sierra Group Proposal (HSGP) was released in May 1986, defining a file system for CD-ROMs commonly known as the High Sierra Format.

A draft version of this proposal was submitted to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for standardization. With some changes, this led to the issue of the initial edition of the ECMA-119 standard in December 1986. The ECMA submitted their standard to the International Standards Organization (ISO) for fast tracking, where it was further refined into the ISO 9660 standard. For compatibility the second edition of ECMA-119 was revised to be equivalent to ISO 9660 in December 1987. ISO 9660:1988 was published in 1988. The main changes from the High Sierra Format in the ECMA-119 and ISO 9660 standards were international extensions to allow the format to work better on non-US markets.

In order not to create incompatibilities, NISO suspended further work on Z39.60, which had been adopted by NISO members on 28 May 1987. It was withdrawn before final approval, in favour of ISO 9660.

JIS X 0606:1998 was passed in Japan in 1998 with much-relaxed file name rules using a new "enhanced volume descriptor" data structure. The standard was submitted for ISO 9660:1999 and supposedly fast-tracked, but nothing came out of it. Nevertheless, several operating systems and disc authoring tools (such as Nero Burning ROM, mkisofs and ImgBurn) now support the addition, under such names as "ISO 9660:1999", "ISO 9660 v2", or "ISO 9660 Level 4". In 2013, the proposal was finally formalized in the form of ISO 9660/Amendment 1, intended to "bring harmonization between ISO 9660 and widely used 'Joliet Specification'." In December 2017, a 3rd Edition of ECMA-119 was published that is technically identical with ISO 9660, Amendment 1.

In 2019, ECMA published a 4th version of ECMA-119, integrating the Joliet text as "Annex C".

In 2020, ISO published Amendment 2, which adds some minor clarifying matter, but does not add or correct any technical information of the standard.

Specifications
The following is the rough overall structure of the ISO 9660 file system.

Multi-byte values can be stored in three different formats: little-endian, big-endian, and in a concatenation of both types in what the specification calls "both-byte" order. Both-byte order is required in several fields in the volume descriptors and directory records, while path tables can be either little-endian or big-endian.

Top level
The system area, the first 32,768 data bytes of the disc (16 sectors of 2,048 bytes each), is unused by ISO 9660 and therefore available for other uses. While it is suggested that they are reserved for use by bootable media, a CD-ROM may contain an alternative file system descriptor in this area, and it is often used by hybrid CDs to offer classic Mac OS-specific and macOS-specific content.

Volume descriptor set
The data area begins with the volume descriptor set, a set of one or more volume descriptors terminated with a volume descriptor set terminator. These collectively act as a header for the data area, describing its content (similar to the BIOS parameter block used by FAT, HPFS and NTFS formatted disks).

Each volume descriptor is 2048 bytes in size, fitting perfectly into a single Mode 1 or Mode 2 Form 1 sector. They have the following structure:

The data field of a volume descriptor may be subdivided into several fields, with the exact content depending on the type. Redundant copies of each volume descriptor can also be included in case the first copy of the descriptor becomes corrupt.

Standard volume descriptor types are the following:

An ISO 9660 compliant disc must contain at least one primary volume descriptor describing the file system and a volume descriptor set terminator for indicating the end of the descriptor sequence. The volume descriptor set terminator is simply a particular type of volume descriptor with the purpose of marking the end of this set of structures. The primary volume descriptor provides information about the volume, characteristics and metadata, including a root directory record that indicates in which sector the root directory is located. Other fields contain the description or name of the volume, and information about who created it and with which application. The size of the logical blocks which the file system uses to segment the volume is also stored in a field inside the primary volume descriptor, as well as the amount of space occupied by the volume (measured in number of logical blocks).

In addition to the primary volume descriptor(s), supplementary volume descriptors or enhanced volume descriptors may be present.
 * Supplementary volume descriptors describe the same volume as the primary volume descriptor does, and are normally used for providing additional code page support when the standard code tables are insufficient. The standard specifies that ISO 2022 is used for managing code sets that are wider than 8 bytes, and that ISO 2375 escape sequences are used to identify each particular code page used. Consequently, ISO 9660 supports international single-byte and multi-byte character sets, provided they fit into the framework of the referenced standards. However, ISO 9660 does not specify any code pages that are guaranteed to be supported: all use of code tables other than those defined in the standard itself are subject to agreement between the originator and the recipient of the volume.
 * Enhanced volume descriptors were introduced in ISO 9660, Amendment 1. They relax some of the requirements of the other volume descriptors and the directory records referenced by them: for example, the directory depth can exceed eight, file identifiers need not contain '.' or file version number, the length of a file and directory identifier is maximized to 207.

Path tables
Path tables summarize the directory structure of the relevant directory hierarchy. For each directory in the image, the path table provides the directory identifier, the location of the extent in which the directory is recorded, the length of any extended attributes associated with the directory, and the index of its parent directory path table entry. The parent directory number is a 16-bit number, limiting its range from 1 to 65,535.

Directories and files

Directory entries are stored following the location of the root directory entry, where evaluation of filenames is begun. Both directories and files are stored as extents, which are sequential series of sectors. Files and directories are differentiated only by a file attribute that indicates its nature (similar to Unix). The attributes of a file are stored in the directory entry that describes the file, and optionally in the extended attribute record. To locate a file, the directory names in the file's path can be checked sequentially, going to the location of each directory to obtain the location of the subsequent subdirectory. However, a file can also be located through the path table provided by the file system. This path table stores information about each directory, its parent, and its location on disc. Since the path table is stored in a contiguous region, it can be searched much faster than jumping to the particular locations of each directory in the file's path, thus reducing seek time.

The standard specifies three nested levels of interchange (paraphrased from section 10):

 * Level 1: File names are limited to eight characters with a three-character extension. Directory names are limited to eight characters. Files may contain one single file section.
 * Level 2: Files may contain one single file section.
 * Level 3: No additional restrictions than those stipulated in the main body of the standard. That is, directory identifiers may not exceed 31 characters in length, and file name + '.' + file name extension may not exceed 30 characters in length (sections 7.5 and 7.6). Files are also allowed to consist of multiple non-contiguous sections (with some restrictions as to order).

Additional restrictions in the body of the standard: The depth of the directory hierarchy must not exceed 8 (root directory being at level 1), and the path length of any file must not exceed 255. (section 6.8.2.1).

The standard also specifies the following name restrictions (sections 7.5 and 7.6):

 * All levels restrict file names in the mandatory file hierarchy to upper case letters, digits, underscores ("_"), and a dot. (See also section 7.4.4 and Annex A.)
 * If no characters are specified for the File Name then the File Name Extension shall consist of at least one character.
 * If no characters are specified for the File Name Extension then the File Name shall consist of at least one character.
 * File names shall not have more than one dot.
 * Directory names shall not use dots at all.

A CD-ROM producer may choose one of the lower Levels of Interchange specified in chapter 10 of the standard, and further restrict file name length from 30 characters to only 8+3 in file identifiers, and 8 in directory identifiers in order to promote interchangeability with implementations that do not implement the full standard.

All numbers in ISO 9660 file systems except the single byte value used for the GMT offset are unsigned numbers. As the length of a file's extent on disc is stored in a 32 bit value, it allows for a maximum length of just over 4.2 GB (more precisely, one byte less than 4 GiB). It is possible to circumvent this limitation by using the multi-extent (fragmentation) feature of ISO 9660 Level 3 to create ISO 9660 file systems and single files up to 8 TB. With this, files larger than 4 GiB can be split up into multiple extents (sequential series of sectors), each not exceeding the 4 GiB limit. For example, the free software such as InfraRecorder, ImgBurn and mkisofs as well as Roxio Toast are able to create ISO 9660 file systems that use multi-extent files to store files larger than 4 GiB on appropriate media such as recordable DVDs. Linux supports multiple extents.

Since amendment 1 (or ECMA-119 3rd edition, or "JIS X 0606:1998 / ISO 9660:1999"), a much wider variety of file trees can be expressed by the EVD system. There is no longer any character limit (even 8-bit characters are allowed), nor any depth limit or path length limit. There still is a limit on name length, at 207. The character set is no longer enforced, so both sides of the disc interchange need to agree via a different channel.

Extensions and improvements
There are several extensions to ISO 9660 that relax some of its limitations. Notable examples include Rock Ridge (Unix-style permissions and longer names), Joliet (Unicode, allowing non-Latin scripts to be used), El Torito (enables CDs to be bootable) and the Apple ISO 9660 Extensions (file characteristics specific to the classic Mac OS and macOS, such as resource forks, file backup date and more).

SUSP
System Use Sharing Protocol (SUSP, IEEE P1281) provides a generic way of including additional properties for any directory entry reachable from the primary volume descriptor (PVD). In an ISO 9660 volume, every directory entry has an optional system use area whose contents are undefined and left to be interpreted by the system. SUSP defines a method to subdivide that area into multiple system use fields, each identified by a two-character signature tag. The idea behind SUSP was that it would enable any number of independent extensions to ISO 9660 to be created and included on a volume without conflicting. It also allows for the inclusion of property data that would otherwise be too large to fit within the limits of the system use area.

SUSP defines several common tags and system use fields:

 * : Continuation area
 * : Padding field
 * : System use sharing protocol indicator
 * : System use sharing protocol terminator
 * : Extensions reference
 * : Extension selector

Other known SUSP fields include:

 * : Apple extension, preferred
 * : Apple extension, old (length attribute is missing)
 * : Amiga file properties
 * : zisofs compressed file, usually produced by program mkzftree or by libisofs. Transparently decompressed by Linux kernel if built with CONFIG_ZISOFS.
 * : records Extended File Attributes, including ACLs. Proposed by libburnia, supported by libisofs.

The Apple extensions do not technically follow the SUSP standard; however the basic structure of the AA and AB fields defined by Apple are forward compatible with SUSP; so that, with care, a volume can use both Apple extensions as well as RRIP extensions.

Rock Ridge
The Rock Ridge Interchange Protocol (RRIP, IEEE P1282) is an extension which adds POSIX file system semantics. The availability of these extension properties allows for better integration with Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The standard takes its name from the fictional town Rock Ridge in Mel Brooks' film Blazing Saddles. The RRIP extensions are, briefly:

 * Longer file names (up to 255 bytes) and fewer restrictions on allowed characters (support for lowercase, etc.)
 * UNIX-style file modes, user ids and group ids, and file timestamps
 * Support for Symbolic links and device files
 * Deeper directory hierarchy (more than 8 levels)
 * Efficient storage of sparse files

The RRIP extensions are built upon SUSP, defining additional tags for support of POSIX semantics, along with the format and meaning of the corresponding system use fields:

 * : Rock Ridge extensions in-use indicator (note: dropped from standard after version 1.09)
 * : POSIX file attributes
 * : POSIX device numbers
 * : symbolic link
 * : alternate name
 * : child link
 * : parent link
 * : relocated directory
 * : time stamp
 * : sparse file data

Amiga Rock Ridge is similar to RRIP, except it provides additional properties used by AmigaOS. It too is built on the SUSP standard by defining an "AS"-tagged system use field. Thus both Amiga Rock Ridge and the POSIX RRIP may be used simultaneously on the same volume. Some of the specific properties supported by this extension are the additional Amiga-bits for files. There is support for attribute "P" that stands for "pure" bit (indicating re-entrant command) and attribute "S" for script bit (indicating batch file). This includes the protection flags plus an optional comment field. These extensions were introduced by Angela Schmidt with the help of Andrew Young, the primary author of the Rock Ridge Interchange Protocol and System Use Sharing Protocol. The first publicly available software to master a CD-ROM with Amiga extensions was MakeCD, an Amiga software which Angela Schmidt developed together with Patrick Ohly.

El Torito
El Torito is an extension designed to allow booting a computer from a CD-ROM. It was announced in November 1994 and first issued in January 1995 as a joint proposal by IBM and BIOS manufacturer Phoenix Technologies. According to legend, the El Torito CD/DVD extension to ISO 9660 got its name because its design originated in an El Torito restaurant in Irvine, California. The initial two authors were Curtis Stevens, of Phoenix Technologies, and Stan Merkin, of IBM.

A 32-bit PC BIOS will search for boot code on an ISO 9660 CD-ROM. The standard allows for booting in two different modes. Either in hard disk emulation when the boot information can be accessed directly from the CD media, or in floppy emulation mode where the boot information is stored in an image file of a floppy disk, which is loaded from the CD and then behaves as a virtual floppy disk. This is useful for computers that were designed to boot only from a floppy drive. For modern computers the "no emulation" mode is generally the more reliable method. The BIOS will assign a BIOS drive number to the CD drive. The drive number (for INT 13H) assigned is any of 80hex (hard disk emulation), 00hex (floppy disk emulation) or an arbitrary number if the BIOS should not provide emulation. Emulation is useful for booting older operating systems from a CD, by making it appear to them as if they were booted from a hard or floppy disk.

El Torito can also be used to produce CDs which can boot up Linux operating systems, by including the GRUB bootloader on the CD and following the Multiboot Specification. While the El Torito spec alludes to a "Mac" platform ID, PowerPC-based Apple Macintosh computers don't use it.

Joliet
Joliet is an extension specified and endorsed by Microsoft and has been supported by all versions of its Windows operating system since Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. Its primary focus is the relaxation of the filename restrictions inherent with full ISO 9660 compliance. Joliet accomplishes this by supplying an additional set of filenames that are encoded in UCS-2BE (UTF-16BE in practice since Windows 2000). These filenames are stored in a special supplementary volume descriptor, that is safely ignored by ISO 9660-compliant software, thus preserving backward compatibility. The specification only allows filenames to be up to 64 Unicode characters in length. However, the documentation for mkisofs states filenames up to 103 characters in length do not appear to cause problems. Microsoft has documented it "can use up to 110 characters." The difference lies in whether CDXA extension space is used.

Joliet allows Unicode characters to be used for all text fields, which includes file names and the volume name. A "Secondary" volume descriptor with type 2 contains the same information as the Primary one (sector 16 offset 40 bytes), but in UCS-2BE in sector 17, offset 40 bytes. As a result of this, the volume name is limited to 16 characters.

Many current PC operating systems are able to read Joliet-formatted media, thus allowing exchange of files between those operating systems even if non-Roman characters are involved (such as Arabic, Japanese or Cyrillic), which was formerly not possible with plain ISO 9660-formatted media. Operating systems which can read Joliet media include:

 * Microsoft Windows; Microsoft recommends the use of the Joliet extension for developers targeting Windows.
 * Linux
 * macOS
 * FreeBSD
 * OpenSolaris
 * Haiku
 * AmigaOS
 * RISC OS

Romeo
Romeo was developed by Adaptec and allows the use of long filenames up to 128 characters, written directly into the primary volume descriptor using the current code page. This format is built around the workings of Windows 9x and Windows NT "CDFS" drivers. When a Windows installation of a different language opens a Romeo disk, the lack of code page indication will cause non-ASCII characters in file names to become Mojibake. For example, "ü" may become "³". A different OS may encounter a similar problem or refuse to recognize these noncompliant names outright.

The same code page problem technically exists in standard ISO 9660, which allows open interpretation of the supplemental and enhanced volume descriptors to any character encoding subject to agreement. However, the primary volume descriptor is guaranteed to be a small subset of ASCII.

Apple extensions
Apple Computer authored a set of extensions that add ProDOS or HFS/HFS+ (the primary contemporary file systems for the classic Mac OS) properties to the filesystem. Some of the additional metadata properties include:
 * Date of last backup
 * File type
 * Creator code
 * Flags and data for display
 * Reference to a resource fork

In order to allow non-Macintosh systems to access Macintosh files on CD-ROMs, Apple chose to use an extension of the standard ISO 9660 format. Most of the data, other than the Apple specific metadata, remains visible to operating systems that are able to read ISO 9660.

Other extensions
For operating systems which do not support any extensions, a name translation file  must be used. The  file is a plain ASCII text file. Each line contains three fields, separated by an arbitrary amount of whitespace:

Most implementations that create TRANS.TBL files put a single space between the file type and ISO 9660 name and some arbitrary number of tabs between the ISO 9660 filename and the extended filename.
 * The file type ("F" for file or "D" for directory);
 * The ISO 9660 filename (including the usually hidden ";1" for files); and
 * The extended filename, which may contain spaces.

Native support for using  still exists in many ISO 9660 implementations, particularly those related to Unix. However, it has long since been superseded by other extensions, and modern utilities that create ISO 9660 images either cannot create TRANS.TBL files at all, or no longer create them unless explicitly requested by the user. Since a TRANS.TBL file has no special identification other than its name, it can also be created separately and included in the directory before filesystem creation.

The ISO 13490 standard is an extension to the ISO 9660 format that adds support for multiple sessions on a disc. Since ISO 9660 is by design a read-only, pre-mastered file system, all the data has to be written in one go or "session" to the medium. Once written, there is no provision for altering the stored content. ISO 13490 was created to allow adding more files to a writeable disc such as CD-R in multiple sessions.

The ISO 13346/ECMA-167 standard was designed in conjunction to the ISO 13490 standard. This new format addresses most of the shortcomings of ISO 9660, and a subset of it evolved into the Universal Disk Format (UDF), which was adopted for DVDs. The volume descriptor table retains the ISO9660 layout, but the identifier has been updated.

Disc images
Optical disc images are a common way to electronically transfer the contents of CD-ROMs. They often have the filename extension  (  is less common, but also in use) and are commonly referred to as "ISOs".

Platforms
Most operating systems support reading of ISO 9660 formatted discs, and most new versions support the extensions such as Rock Ridge and Joliet. Operating systems that do not support the extensions usually show the basic (non-extended) features of a plain ISO 9660 disc.

Operating systems that support ISO 9660 and its extensions include the following:

 * DOS: access with extensions, such as MSCDEX.EXE (Microsoft CDROM Extension), NWCDEX.EXE or CORELCDX.EXE
 * Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME: can read ISO 9660 Level 1, 2, 3, and Joliet
 * Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and newer Windows versions, can read ISO 9660 Level 1, 2, 3, Joliet, and ISO 9660:1999. Windows 7 may also mistake UDF format for CDFS. for more information see UDF.
 * Linux and BSD: ISO 9660 Level 1, 2, 3, Joliet, Rock Ridge, and ISO 9660:1999
 * Apple GS/OS: ISO Level 1 and 2 support via the HS.FST File System Translator.
 * Classic Mac OS 7 to 9: ISO Level 1, 2. Optional free software supports Rock Ridge and Joliet (including ISO Level 3): Joke Ridge and Joliet Volume Access.
 * macOS (all versions): ISO Level 1, 2, Joliet and Rock Ridge Extensions. Level 3 is not currently supported, although users have been able to mount these discs
 * AmigaOS supports the "AS" extensions (which preserve the Amiga protection bits and file comments)
 * QNX
 * ULTRIX
 * OS/2, eComStation and ArcaOS
 * BeOS, Zeta and Haiku
 * OpenVMS supports only ISO 9660 Interchange levels 1–3, with no extensions
 * RISC OS support for optical media written on a PC is patchy. Most CD-Rs/RWs work perfectly, however DVD+-Rs/RWs/RAMs are entirely hit and miss running RISC OS 4.02, RISC OS 4.39 and RISC OS 6.20

title: ISO 9660