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.
* specpls3_flop.xml: Added missing IPFs info, minor changes.
Added the known CRC info of the missing IPF files, now all three of them have their own (commented out) entries.
Also renamed the Ghouls 'n' Ghosts IPF just for consistency with the others (after making sure that it was the official one), and ordered the IPFs alphabetically.
No files have been added or deleted.
* specpls3_flop.xml: Added size of missing IPFs
Added the apparent size of the three missing IPFs.
* fixed previous commit
-Documented Rescate Atlántida being a dual Spectrum+Amstrad release.
-Documented Comando Tracer being a dual Spectrum+Amstrad release (though it's still not clear which version did the current dump come from).
-Changed Comando Tracer's year of release to 1988.
-Split the two Navy Moves Spanish editions correctly (standalone and dual Spectrum+Amstrad).
-Removed one Navy Moves duplicate which only had an altered header.
-Added new parent/clone relationship between Wanderer 3D UK and Spanish versions.
-Cosmetic changes:
--Moved the relevant comments into their respective entries/floppies.
--Reworded a few things.
Get rid of a couple of copies of the CC0 text. Add header comment to
CC0 files to remind people editing them what the terms are. Also add
some missing XML headers. The header comments in layouts won't bloat
the binary - they get stripped out before compressing, same as any other
comments.
* Spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
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* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* murder list work (nw)
* list clenaups (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
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* list work (nw)
* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
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* spectrum list work (nw)
* list work (nw)
* specpls3_flop.xml: New additions
Added side A of the LC-10 Colour Screen printer driver disk, dumped by Guy Bearman.
Also corrected a couple of entries after asking around and doing some additional research.
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* specpls3_flop.xml: New additions
New:
-Full Samdisk dump of Mercs, including both sides.
-Spanish version of 4 Soccer Simulators.
Thanks go to Gorski and ZXdenied.
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
Added more disk images, some of which were previously missing from the internet due to them being considered "Distribution Denied".
Thanks go to: Antonio M, Fede Jerez, Gorski, Jaime González Soriano, José Manuel, Marino Arribas, Metalbrain, robcfg, Simon Owen, Syx, Zup and TZX Vault.
Also fixed a few things here and there (extra line breaks, full company names, capital letters...).
NOTE: Due to the addition of a UK version of Navy Seals, the Spanish version has been renamed from "navyseal" to "navysealsp" and is now a clone of the new "navyseal".
This effectively reverts b380514764 and
c24473ddff, restoring the state at
598cd52272.
Before pushing, please check that what you're about to push is sane.
Check your local commit log and ensure there isn't anything out-of-place
before pushing to mainline. When things like this happen, it wastes
everyone's time. I really don't need this in a week when real work™ is
busting my balls and I'm behind where I want to be with preparing for
MAME release.
* Latest TOSEC additions
These changes add most of the DSKs featured in the latest TOSEC DAT files which, according to Lady Eklipse, include all files that were in TOSEC and all files from www.worldofspectrum.org which were never in TOSEC before. Which file and update they come from is commented for each entry, so that they can be consulted.
Files removed:
- Files marked as "bad dumps" which have a "good" parent set.
- Trained games, except for a "cheat version" of Neighbours which may have come from the original developers.
- 80-track (3.5'') disk images.
- Files generated with the ZXZVM interpreter.
- Games from the Crap Games Competition.
All the DSK files which have a corresponding IPF have been labeled as "alt" clones until they're confirmed to come from the exact same release and can be safely removed (there's an added disclaimer about it in each of these entries, to make them easy to locate).
Other alt versions not in World of Spectrum have been kept for the same reason, since the exact source of each file doesn't seem to be properly documented anywhere, which means they'd need some research before a safe removal.
Notes about the known DSK dumps:
-Some dumps may come with an empty Side B, which is technically correct for games which were released with an empty side on purpose. These were usually labeled as "Sin grabar para tu uso" ("Unrecorded for your use") in many Spanish releases.
-Some of the "master disks" from Zeppelin Games share the same file (same SHA-1) for their Side B. This has been verified against the downloads available in World of Spectrum.
-A few releases had a version for a different system on the other side. These have been commented out but not removed, for reference.
I'm listing here some unofficial/homebrew disk collections which may or may not qualify to be included, so that you can decide their fate:
"Javier Herrera Games Collection": A bunch of well-known commercial games put in many disks.
"Jesus Tejero Software Collection": 48K games ported to many disks.
"Jesus Tejero Tools Collection": This disks include a bunch of utilities for +3 disks such as an "autoload sector creator", some of which I haven't found outside the compilations. Might be useful when testing disk emulation?
"MicroByte - Serie Clasicos Spectrum": Disk copies of the "Clásicos Spectrum" collection of 48K/16K cassettes. I don't think any of them were officially made available in disk form.
"Recopilacion Vives": Disk ports of three unreleased games which also have their own TZX already.
"Complex Oldfield Trilogy": This lets you choose between three Mike Oldfield albums, loads a title screen depending on which you chose and plays renditions of the tracks in them.
"Gary Lancaster Tools Collection": I can't load this one, maybe it has some copy protection or something. Haven't found any info about it.
* specpls3_flop.xml: New images from SPA2's backlog
Added a selection of the DSK images without errors which were sent to me by the SPA2 owner.
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Expanded more company names
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* "Pirate" -> "Pirate Software"
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Update specpls3_flop.xml
* Full dates for the Castlevanias in the comments.
