Date   : Thu, 22 Feb 1996 13:15:47 +0000
From   : Roy Collett <roy@...>
Subject: Emulation systems

Hey all you heroic emulator writers. Let me tell you what's needed.
Do a host emulation mode menu (and initialisation file to load defaults) 

The following should be selectable from sub-directories on the host.

S-ROM (What Sideways ROMs are loaded)
    Files in Image format as Name.ROM (8K or 16K) images.

TAPE
    Files in Image format as Name.TAP (?) In dicussion already I know.
    Requires support for *TAPE etc. commands in OS.

DFS 
    Files in Image format as Name.DFS (See Robert Schmidt's Web page)
    (Maybe the emulation can sort out the format from the size of the
     file. I don't think we need to worry about wasted space in image
     files. The Emulator should see a whole disk.)
    Requires 8271 emulation.

ADFS
    Files in Image format as Name.AFS (to be defined)
    Requires 1772 emulation.

Also a menu item for soft/hard reset and power.

OK. So I'm spoilt by the AppleWin Apple][ emulator by Michael O'Brien.
Still (necessarily I suppose) in Beta, but it is superb. Especially the
handling of disk image files.

On the Beeb though, I think most files (games) which people will want to
run would be far better off in some tape file format where the original
file names and loaders can be preserved and files not duplicated accross
different disk compilations. Also "PAGE" is kept at &0E00 (if DFS ROM's
ARE NOT LOADED"). 

My comment then, for what it's worth, is to start with TAPE, then DFS
then ADFS then Master, then...

Roy Collett  roy@...
New Southgate, London, England.