The boot image is for Vicare what the basic run–time system, the dynamic library linker and the C Standard library are for the C language.
The boot image is a binary file in which the Scheme objects are serialised with the same format of FASL files representing compiled libraries (see fasl). The source code of the boot image is a set of Scheme libraries as defined by R6RS, with Vicare extensions; its compiled and serialised representation has the layout:
header library header library header library header library ... |------|-------|------|-------|------|-------|------|-------|---
where:
#@IK0, followed by the
ASCII character 1 on 32-bit platforms or the ASCII
character 2 on 64-bit platforms; the end of fasl marker is
@.