11 Aug
2004
11 Aug
'04
1:42 p.m.
Rumor has it that Vintage Computer Festival may have mentioned these words:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Steve Thatcher wrote:
> If we create a physical description only and do not abstract the data
> then any emulator must understand the OS file structure in order to
> retrieve any internal file representation.
I don't wanna sound like a doofus, but:
So?
My idea would make the file
It could be accommodated, but why should it when it would be easier for
someone to build a converter into an emulator image file?
This spec (as far as I understand it) is going to be read-only anyway -
this is for archiving after all. What happens when the emulator tries to
rewrite the disk image (say, from saving a modified file)? What will happen
to the original archive?
re-creation simple in that the xml image file
would be parsed for the
actual file data that an emulator would need. This makes the emulator
easier.
You're describing an imagefile that contains a filesystem image, rather
than, say, a disk image. This can be accomodated in the spec, but it's a
different type of image than what we've been discussing. It's up to emulator writers to read the spec and
adapt to it.
Bam. That hit the thumbnail right on the head. ;-)
We'll make
the spec as flexible as possible, but first and foremost, the spec is
intended to archive images of data media, and not to serve as a universal
emulator image format (though it should be able to be used as such).
I'd like to add that IMHO it should be "read-only" so the emulator
doesn't
destroy the archive when it rewrites certain sectors and/or files.
At least that's my take on the deal...
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Randomization is better!!!
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.