64-bit integers in FITS

[John E. Davis]

On 14 Jul 1998 09:51:10 -0400, Tim Pearson <tjp at astro.caltech.edu>
wrote:
>I am surprised that many people appear to think that FITS is designed
>for interchanging computer bit patterns. It is not: it is for
>interchanging images (and now tabular data), using as few different
>conventions as possible.

   My main concern is that FITS is not being used to simply exchange
images between systems (which it does well), but is used as a general
purpose data archive format.  I have no problems with this concept as
long as the file format is well defined in the absence of a reader.  I
remain unconvinced that this requirement is fulfilled.

   If FITS should not be used as a general purpose archive format,
then it would be nice if the scope of the file format was spelled out
in the NOST document.  Some people believe that all programs used for
processing astrophysical data should read and write FITS files and
communicate with each other using such files.  I believe that this
practice goes beyond the original scope of the FITS file format.

--John