Architecture
As QWK was originally designed to work with PCBoard, the system bears many marks of PCBoard's layout for message and forum files. For instance, QWK uses one file to contain the messages, and another that is used to index their headers. QWK was essentially a way to collect messages from PCBoard's internal files, and re-package them into a single file.
The hard-coding of much of QWK system to PCBoard formats led to a number of problems. In particular, the QWK system had a number of hard-coded limits to various fields, notably things like the subject line. This made it less than useful for non-PCBoard messages, and led to the creation of the SOUP format. SOUP was essentially a version of QWK supporting UseNet messages, extending the length of existing fields, as well as the adding several new fields to support UseNet features threading and routing. SOUP, however, was less widely used than the QWK format.
Probably the largest issue for implementing QWK is the *.NDX file which contains a record specifier in the old 4-byte MSBIN float format. This format was used by early Microsoft BASIC compilers, but has been displaced by the IEEE 754 format. Further, since it is a four-byte value, and is used to represent an integer, a float is a poor choice where a 32-bit integer would have been much better. As a result of this, many pieces of software do or have incorrectly generated or used the *.NDX file, and others ignore it completely.
Read more about this topic: QWK (file Format)
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