On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Sean Young wrote:
> Well we can call the format "unified msx game format", and the extension is
> .msx -- how's that?
I prefer "Unified MSX Format". There's no need to insert "game"
in the name, since the format can be used for apps that are not games.
However, which would be the name of the ini file? msxgame.ini would
not be acceptable anymore, what about msxsoft.ini ?
> Just for a remark, someone on messdev is working on diskdumps which are "mfm
> disks". It actually contains the dumps of the tracks, so it should work in
> any case.
This would be the perfect solution for copy protected disks.
For disks without protection, we could use the standard .dsk files,
but a detailed information would be required:
Name=YS 3 - Wanderers from YS
Diskimage=y3a.dsk,80,2,9,512,B,Scenario Disk
Diskimage=y3b.dsk,80,2,9,512,N,Data 1 Disk
Diskimage=y3c.dsk,80,2,9,512,N,Data 2 Disk
Diskimage=y3d.dsk,80,2,9,512,N,Data 3 Disk
Diskimage=y3e.dsk,80,2,9,512,N,User Disk
The arguments for Diskimage are:
1. name of .dsk inside the .msx package
2. number of tracks
3. number of sides
4. sectors per track
5. size of a sector
6. bootable flag
7. description of the disk
The extra information about the disk is very important. Some
emulators cannot run Famicle Parodic since they assume all disks
are 720kb and this is not always true.
The description of the disk is the only parameter seen by user.
When the game asks him for "Scenario disk", all he need to do is clicking
on some button to load the correct .dsk
> IIRC RuMSX has some format where apart from the .dsk file there is another
> file which basically indicates which sectors are bad. IMHO .mfm disks is
> much nicer as it's far more near to the real MSX.
I agree with you, a raw dump of all the track info is enough
to cover all kinds of copy protections, plus it can also cover unusual
formats (such as the brazilian game Lenda da Gavea, unplayable on all
emulators due to unusual formatting).
> Also on second thought I do agree we can better the just have a number than
> some system that describes the mapper; describing the workings is not going
> to complete (think of Super Load Runner) -- another funky mapper. In the
> real world, implementing specific types is easier and faster than a general
> one (from a description). And we're looking at probably about 20 different
> ones, which isn't that bad really.
I do not agree with you this time. Suppose we adopt the fmsx
numbering system, and suppose also someone finds a new cartridge with a
different mapper. In this case, everyone should wait until an emulator
author has free time available to implement the new mapper. In the generic
mapper case, the mapper is described in the .msx archive and then all
emulators can play the game, without the need for a new emulator release.
I think the second scenario is better by far.
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Ricardo Bittencourt http://www.lsi.usp.br/~ricardo
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