Let's develop an open-source media archive standard - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

11 Aug 2004

XML is platform neutral, ascii and provides a structure to information rather than just an
INI file type of dump - the start and end keywords let you define as many sub structures
as you need.

best regards, Steve Thatcher

-----Original Message-----
From: Vintage Computer Festival &lt;vcf(a)siconic.com&gt;
Sent: Aug 11, 2004 3:23 PM
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
&lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt;
Subject: RE: Let's develop an open-source media archive standard

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Cini, Richard wrote:

...
  This example represents the block data using
metatags...I guess along the
 "XML" part of the thread.

 I was thinking similarly to you but not using XML metadata:

 ;Hardware descriptor
 MFGR
 MACHINE
 SUBTYPE
 DRIVETYPE	(this of course defines what follows)
 ;for floppy
 DRIVESIZE
 ENCODING
 TRACKS
 SECTORS
 SECTSIZE
 ;HexData
 ; Each record or group of records contains the related media data. The
 address record would be used for encoding the metadata
 00TTSSHH: (00-track-sector-head)

 I looked to Intel Hex (or Motorola) because it had built-in CRC facilities
 and it was human-readable ASCII. The drive and machine description could be
 encoded in special MOT records probably. 
I like the XML style because it's more explicit; more human-readable.

...
  XML is more a more "current" technology but
I was trying to keep with the
 platform neutrality by sticking to text-only and not assuming the use of any
 other technology like XML. 
XML is platform neutral because it's basically ASCII, right?

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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