OS/2 Icon

File Format
Name	OS/2 Icon
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Graphics OS/2 Icon
Extension(s)	.ico
Released	1988

OS/2 Icon is an icon format related to OS/2 BMP, and sometimes considered to be a member of the OS/2 BMP family of formats. It is very similar to OS/2 Pointer format. It is not particularly similar to Windows ICO format.

There is a color format, and a bi-level format. Multiple icons may be stored in the same file using the "bitmap array" ("BA") container format. The BA format may be used even when the file contains only one icon.

OS/2 icons are sometimes embedded as resources in OS/2 Linear Executable files.

Identification

An OS/2 Icon file may begin with ASCII characters "CI" (color), or "IC" (bi-level). Or, it may begin with "BA", and have (usually) "CI" or "IC" at offset 14.

Specifications

• OS/2 Presentation Manager Programming Reference Guide, Vol III

Software

• XIcon (old software, untested)
• Deark
• Image Alchemy

Sample files

BA/CI

(Most, but not all, of the icons at these locations use BA/CI format.)

• http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/OS2/hobbes/multimedia/images/icons/
• http://cd.textfiles.com/hobbesos29804/disk1/ICONS/
• http://cd.textfiles.com/hobbesos29503/ICONS/
• Some icon collections can be found at http://kimludvigsen.dk/os2/os2/graphx/index.php
• ICONSOS2.ZIP

BA/IC

• YAOS181.ZIP → yaos.ico

CI

• XICON10.ZIP → test/*.ico
• VISAGEIC.ZIP → toolsfop.ico, cwicon.ico

IC

• 2736.ZIP - The 288-byte ICO files are in IC format. For example MOUSE.ICO, PC2PC.ICO.

Links

• OS/2 Bitmap File Format Summary, from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats