Date   : Fri, 01 Mar 1996 14:40:03 +0100
From   : Robert Schmidt <robert@...>
Subject: Re: Emulation systems

>> BBCTAPE_.___   Index file
>> BBC-FILE.000   file 'BBC-FILE'
>> Q_FILE00.001   file 'Q.FILE0000'
>> R_BBC_FI.002   file 'R.BBC/FILE'
>> 
>> and the index file would contain entries like:
>> 
>> Id# Filename    Exec Addr  Load Addr   Next FileId#
>> === ==========  =========  =========   ===========
>> 000 BBC-FILE    FFFF8023   FFFF0E00    002
>> 001 Q.FILE0000  FFFF4000   FFFF4000    001
>> 002 R.BBC/FILE  FFFFFFFF   FFFFFFFF    FFF
>
>I like this idea -- I'll probably put something similar into Xbeeb v0.4
>for the disk emulation.

Merging two directories using this number indexing scheme will be *very*
cumbersome without the help of a dedicated utility.  Why can't "Next FileId"
be "Next Filename" instead?  Then we wouldn't need the numbers at all,
except for distinguishing two files which would otherwise have identical
DOSified names, for example.

And I don't approve of this way of using extensions.  My philosophy is to
either have no extension, or have a meaningful one.  With UNIX/Mac/Win32
this is easy by appending ".bbc" to the above names.  In DOS it's a problem.
 

Also note that the Filename field(s) should be *binary*!  I came across a
game (forgot which one) which even had a CR in the file name!  (Should be
easy to hack away, but there are other binary characters besides CR...)  I'm
still in favour of binary headers on each file... :)


robert

--
Robert Schmidt - robert@...         - http://www.idt.unit.no/~robert
	
	Maintainer of "The BBC lives!" page:  
	http://www.idt.unit.no/~robert/bbc/bbc.html