First post, by Guest
Hi,
For a long while now I've been been a fan of so-called abandonware and emulation and noticed that almost all other platforms have a method for auditing and organising roms, rom sets, or disk images (For example, Mame has ClrMAMEPro, TOSEC takes care of disk and tape based media generally and GOODRoms / RomCenter take care of binary cartridge dumps for systems like the Super Nintendo).
What I propose initially is a discussion about how we could consider achieving the same thing for DOS games, in conjunction with DOSBox. A good starting example as a point of reference would be the MAME frontend, MAME32 for Windows.
Questions must be raised though on the format in which games are stored - and whether Warez rips are valid for inclusion (should copy protection mechanisms prohibit the playing of a game).
Some initial thoughts:
1) Very old games which booted directly from floppy disk could simply be stored as a disk image.
2) Games to be stored as single compressed files and decompressed when a game is launched (with a cache for larger games).
3) Savegames would be derived from diff'ing the game folder on DOSBox exit.
4) Icons, artwork, history and screenshots would be nice. Another thing would be a configuration profile system (as in dosbox speed settings done intelligently and preset autoexec / config files).
5) CD Images as .ISO files. Perhaps investigate compression of ISO data.
6) Dealing with split sets - as in games which have had patches released or differing versions (international / cracked) - perhaps think about doing a similar thing to MAME.
OK - These are just a few thoughts, and if there is interest around, I'll set up a wiki. Unfortunately, I'm only a VB coder, and although I'd be proficient enough to write a front end with most of the features supported, I'd probably be shunned by the developer elite! 😉
So lets get discussing. It'd be great if we could help preserve history. It'd be a mammoth task, but if you look at sites like pouet.net - you'll find that huge databases of information regarding old school computer stuff is achievable with a bit of applied skill and structure.
rua (posting anonymously until my account is activated)