The free-for-all on labels in software lists is not working. There's no
consistency, labels are getting excessively long, people are starting to
use non-ASCII characters in labels making it harder for others to type
them when manipulating files on the command line, and there's too much
markup being put in labels.
The length limit is 127 characters, same as for labels in MAME itself.
This should be long enough to be descriptive. Remember that the Win32
path limit is 260 characters, and many applications and frameworks have
issues with longer paths, including Windows Explorer and the .NET
framework. Labels are used as filenames, so concessions need to be
made for this.
I have not abbreviated excessively long labels myself - they're
currently causing 135 validity errors. Someone else can fix them.
Printable ASCII characters are allowed, with a few exceptions. The
exceptions are limited to characters most likely to cause issues for
interactive shells and scripts:
* ! - csh event substitution (very difficult to escape properly)
* $ - sh varibale expansion
* % - csh job control, cmd variable expansion
* / - UNIX directory separator
* : - sh path separator, Windows drive qualifier
* \ - sh escape, Windows directory separator
Most of the labels that had to be edited were using ! for markup, or
using ! and % for titles in labels. Strangely, titles in labels are
often forced to lower case, despite this never being enforced for
software lists. There are also various other edits to titles used for
labels, such as moving articles to the end (with or without a comma),
or replacing spaces with underscores. As I already said, there's no
consistency at all.
There is far too much markup in labels. They're even being used for
notes in some cases (e.g. at least one case where a dumper's name is in
the label). The XML schema supports metadata - use it. For example,
you can use part_id for an unrestricted display name for a software
part. You can also use XML comments for notes.
And while on the topic of metadata, vgmplay.xml is putting the same
thing in the part_id as well as the label. The part_id should have
the actual title, not the title mangled to make it more suitable for
use as a filename. Addressing this would be a lot of work, given how
large the file is.
For now, empty data areas in software lists cause a verbose message
rather than a validation warning. There are thousands of software
lists using empty data areas to indicate the size/width of cartridge
RAM/EEPROM/etc.
romload.cpp: reduce copy-pasta (nw)
(nw) I fixed the errors found by adding validation to software list data areas.
Most of them seem to be simple copy-paste errors hidden by the fact that the
default device_image_interface loader ignores the data area size (as opposed to
the "ROM" loader). There was one C64 cartridge with a missing zero on the data
area size that was pretty clearly wrong.
- New dumps (all working, dumped by me):
Ai Shimai - Futari no Kajitsu
Doukyuusei 2 Special Disk
Super Ultra Mucchin Puripuri Cyborg Maririn DX
Music Pro-Towns (1990-05-23)
Shangrlia 2 Special Disk
S. A. 2
- Promoted Music Pro-Towns to working and added usage instructions.
- Replaced MS-DOS 6.20 L10 with the images from the Master CD, which should match the original disks. The previous images were the "installed" floppies that can be created from the original ones.
- Replaced entries with dumps from the redump.org database:
Free Software Collection 6
Free Software Collection 7
Free Software Collection 8
Free Software Collection 9
Free Software Collection 10
Free Software Collection 11
Freeware Collection 2
Freeware Collection 3
Golf Links 386 Pro
Psychic Detective Series Vol. 5 - Nightmare
Towns System Software V1.1L30
Viewpoint
- Added new working dumps from the redump.org database:
Gadget - Invention, Travel, & Adventure
Virtuacall 2
- Started to re-convert some pre-0.175 CHDs with current CHDMAN (see GitHub issue #2517). I'm starting with the Redump ones (and Neo Kobe ones that match Redump), the rest will come later:
Air Combat II Special
Dangel
DOR Best Selection Joukan
DOR Special Edition '93
F-BASIC386 v1.1 L20
Galaxy Force II
Hyper Ocean
OASYS/Win v2.0
Psychic Detective Series Vol. 1 - Invitation - Kage kara no Shoutaijou
Psychic Detective Series Vol. 2 - Memories
Psychic Detective Series Vol. 3 - Aya
Psychic Detective Series Vol. 4 - Orgel
Psychic Detective Series Final - Solitude Joukan
Psychic Detective Series Final - Solitude Gekan
Pu-Li-Ru-La
Shadow of the Beast II - Juushin no Jubaku
SimAnt
Towns Magazine
Towns System Software v2.1 L10A
Windows 3.1 L11
* Example data tidying
This is an example of what I'd like to do to the existing cassette dumps:
* Conform to 8.3 filename structure, for both the software name and ROM names
* Give credit to who dumped it, which also makes it easier to track these down
* Optimise the image with tapclean, which changes the file's hashes (but not the payload's magic CRC32, as the target data itself is unaltered)
Optimising the image makes it overall PASS instead of FAIL. I think this is as close as we can get to canon tape dumps.
* Give more examples of tidying up The Ultimate Tape Archive data
* Add a partial tape, B-side only
It's incomplete, but a start.
* Add a full tape, Hacker II
* Add partial dump of James Pond 2: RoboCod
* Add partial dump of Kettle
I'm only adding dumps that completely passed tapclean's inspection,
after optimisation. As this optimisation reduces wow and flutter
and other arbitrary timing aspects, it's reasonable to assume that
other people dumping the same tapes will be able to verify the present
sides and fill in the missing ones, which are oftentimes duplicates
anyway.
* Empty commit; note
Actually, that last commit message is incorrect. Identical dumps
have matching magic CRC32s (payload only), but not matching overall
CRC32s. There's still arbitrary data in there.
* These programs were rereleased by Hi Tec in 1989
...as per the inlay cards.
* Add full rerelease of Summer Camp
* Add Tetris
* Add The Greed Monster
* Fix part names; give credit
- Replaced entries with dumps from the redump.org database, with proper track indexes and offset correction:
Advantage Tennis
Alice no Yakata CD
Asuka 120% Burning Fest. Excellent
Awesome
Classic Road
Fractal Engine Demo
Hyper Address (HMB-106)
Infestation - Chinmoku no Wakusei
Loom (audio drama CD)
Oshare Cooking II
Sangokushi III
Software Contest Nyuusen Sakuhinshuu 2
Sotsugyou '93 - Graduation
Super Shanghai - Dragon's Eye
Takamizawa Kyousuke - Nekketsu!! Kyouiku Kenshuu
TDF - Terrestrial Defense Force
Towns Magazine Vol. 2
- Added new working dumps from the redump.org database:
The 4th Unit 5 - D-Again (Demo)
Air Warrior V2.1L10
Ehon Writer - Denshi Ehon - Aesop World Dai-1-shuu
GEdit Towns
Hyper Address (HMB-106A)
Kotoba Asobi - CDView HiP Catch
Kanji Land 3-nen
Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1
Master CD - Install Model-you
My Fair Lady CAN III. Intermediate
Niko²
Oto to E no Deru Eigo Jisho No. 1 - Start with Words
Software Contest Nyuusen Sakuhinshuu 1 (HMC-139)
Software Contest Nyuusen Sakuhinshuu 1 (HMC-139B)
Software Contest Nyuusen Sakuhinshuu 3
The Queen of Duellist (HME-166A)
- Added floppy disk dumps for the following entries (thanks to wiggy2k for dumping them), and promoted to working status:
Shamhat - The Holy Circlet
Suzaku
