Date   : Sat, 24 Feb 1996 09:07:08 +0000 (GMT)
From   : James Fidell <james@...>
Subject: Re: Emulation systems

I'm all in favour of discussing wishlists and ideas for Beeb emulators
on this list, although I already have a fairly healthy list of "what next ?"
type stuff for Xbeeb.

Let's keep it on a civil and friendly basis though.  Past discussions on
this list have helped many of the Beeb emulator writers already, but
"in your face" demands for certain functionality are more than likely to
be met with a response of "go and write it yourself, then".

Personally, I think tape filing system emulation would be nice for the
sake of completeness, but it's kind of limited.  There are many ways to
go with disk emulation -- files which are virtual disks is one.  Xbeeb
takes a different approach which makes all the disk files separate files
in a UNIX directory structure.  The disk handling in Xbeeb v0.3 is very
pleasing (no, I didn't write it, though it's based on my code from v0.2).

As to standards for disk files, tape files, snapshot formats and the like,
the best way to progress with those is to write a proposal and post it.
Then the rest of us can pull it apart and suggest modifications until we
all get something with which we feel comfortable.  I've had some private
discussion with various people about snapshot formats and I intend to
completely re-write my proposal soon.  At that point I'll post it here.

James.

-- 
 "Yield to temptation --             | Work: james@...               
  it may not pass your way again"    | Play: james@...                 
                                     | http://www.OiT.co.uk/~james/
        - Lazarus Long               |              James Fidell