WAVE files are an audio file format created by Microsoft and IBM, first introduced in 1991 for the Windows 3.1 Operating System. It uses the RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format) bitstream format to store an audio file in chunks, consisting of the Wav file header information and the data subchunk. Wav data is typically encoded using the uncompressed LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation), a digital interpretation of an analog signal, where the magnitude of the analog signal is sampled at regular intervals and mapped to a range of discreet binary values. The data can also be encoded by a range of compression/decompression codecs, like ADPCM, or MP3. discreet binary values. The data can also be encoded by a range of compression/decompression codecs, like ADPCM, or MP3.