Date   : Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:40:38 +0200
From   : Isabel Cisternas & Robert Schmidt <rschmidt@...>
Subject: Re: INF and UEF formats

Richard Gellman wrote:
> In my experience the software for download on TBL! is in zipped file+inf
> format (aka archive format), which cannot be read by emulating the fdc
> hardware (at least not without extensive translation of files in a host
> directory into catalogue information, absolute sectors, etc, which would
> involve building a temporary discimage in memory, and is a tad complex).

This is more of a general follow-up, than a direct reply - sorry.

Such is the disadvantage of creating the first major site with an online
software library.  Wouter and I were mostly concerned with having an
format that could easily be converted to any other.  At the time of
TBL!'s conception, the major "players" were (listen up, Thomas):

* James' Xbeeb used a proprietary INF-like structure, except that all
INF information was gathered in a __CATALOG__ file (easily created using
"cat *.inf > __CATALOG__").

* Tom's Model-B used a proprietary disc image format, which could be
converted from (to?) raw dumps.  Tom later provided a conversion from
INF as well.

* David Alan's BeebEm used the raw SSD/DSD disc sector dumps.  Wouter
wrote "bbcim", Laurie Whiffen gave us the excellent "BBC Explorer".

* Chris' Horizon used the host file system, but with the INF information
provided as a proprietary header on each file.  I think he also provides
a conversion utility.

* Mike's 6502Em uses the host (RISC OS) filing system, AFAIK, which
matches the Beeb well.

(pcBBC did not exist until a couple of years later.)

As you can hopefully appreciate, when wanting to find the easiest common
denominator, it was not immediately obvious that an all-preserving disc
image format (like FDI) would get us anywhere.  None of the emulators
this even planned.  Not wanting to discriminate between any of the
existing emulators, I still think Wouter and I made a reasonably good
choice at the time.

> I believe David Devenport's BeebInC emulator reads its files in this way,
> using "Emulator DCDFS".

That's right.


Robert