Date   : Wed, 22 Aug 2001 15:52:27 +0000
From   : "W.Scholten" <wouter.scholten@...>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE : UEF Specification 0.9

Thomas Harte wrote:

> but clearly shows that if I favour the interests of my
> users rather than what I just assume to be correct I should stop supporting
> UNIX before I stop supporting DOS.

No, because unix is a (are) proper OS, whereas DOS isn't and more ore
less obsolete with almost everyone using windoze.

> >  INF files are a bit simpler than XML, by a couple of magnitudes. :-)
> >  But I get your point.  INF was decided upon for an immediate, simple
> >  need, and was never meant to be extendable.
> 
> INF is also badly documented and confusing for the end user

No, it isn't badly documented, it's extremly explicitly documented. More
so than your uef specs & functions to access them (I had to guess which
functions did what as you did not describe them anywhere, and they were
not named in a standard way either. Also had to guess when to use a
certain function, see the uef decode loop).

Confusing for end users. Hmm. Uef isn't then?

> With a game on
> disc it could conceivably even not have a catalogue, forcing me to think as
> I probably was anyway of the game being a one unit entity. With INF I
> suddenly have to start dealing with many little files and half-implemented
> 'cheat' filing systems (which usually don't let you save your game) and
> stupid things like that.

cheat filing systems? What's that?
Many little files: who cares :)

Anyway, it's mostly meant as a distribution format, and as such it
works, I'll say it again, beautifully. With my utility functions almost
noone should have to worry about optional fields either.


> It'd certainly stop people coming up with in my opinion ill thought out and
> confusing half-ideas like SSD/DSD/IMG/ADF/ADM/ADL and INF!

The disk naming scheme is not good as you need way too many names (hence
I use .dsk), but I've yet too see any really good arguments against INF.
So your arguments aren't really valid, INF does what it's supposed to
do, it can easily be handled/changed with a text editor if you haven't
got tools for a given OS etc, and certainly 'stop coming up' is not
going on either. What has been introduced anywhere in weird formats for
the BBC? (I'd say UEF :-))

Also remember that that at that time (conception of Robert's & my ideas
was late 1995 early 1996 (Robert wanted a BBC identifier at the start
IIRC)) all other emulator systems seemed to use image formats only. This
is exactly what the INF format was about: breaking up disc images so you
can combine them yourself, transfer them to whatever other format etc.
Tape was almost a non-issue, if there were more people actually
discussing such things on the ML then, things might have been different.

Wouter