Let's develop an open-source media archive standard

From: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf_at_siconic.com>
Date: Wed Aug 11 12:56:08 2004

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Cini, Richard wrote:

> I might have missed what the ultimate use of this archive would be. Will the
> archive be used to (1) re-generate original media; (2) operate with
> emualtors; (3) both?

Both. Emulators will certainly be able to make use of the archive by
having parsers built-in that can translate the archive data into
something the emulator can use. So instead of point the emulator to a
binary disk image, you would point it to an archive file and it would
translate the file back into tracks/sectors, or punch cards, or whatever.

> To ensure integrity of the data I would propose recording the data in the
> Intel Hex format -- it's text-based and has built-in CRC. Now, we'd have to
> modify the standard format a bit to accommodate a larger address space and
> to add some sort of standardized header (a "Hardware Descriptor"). This data
> would be used by the de-archiver to interpret the stream of data read from
> the data area (the "Hex Block").

I think you're thinking of this in terms of a large binary file encoded as
ASCII hex. If so, this is not what's being proposed. What is being
discussed is a format which actually describes the physical medium. For
example, on floppy:

<MEDIA TYPE=FLOPPY SIZE=5.25 SIDES=1 DENSITY=SINGLE FORMAT=GCR TRACKS=35
SECTORS=16 SECTORSIZE=256>

<VOLUME>Apple ][ System Disk</VOLUME>

</MEDIA>


<DATA>
<TRACK 0><SECTOR 0>

HERE WOULD BE THE ASCII HEX DATA FOR TRACK 0, SECTOR 0

</SECTOR></TRACK>

...

<TRACK 34><SECTOR 15>

HERE WOULD BE THE ASCII HEX DATA FOR TRACK 34, SECTOR 15

</SECTOR></TRACK>
</DATA>

> I think that we should start compiling a list of the various media we want
> represented and how that media is organized natively. I don't mean "well, it
> has blocks and sectors" either. We should examine the exact format down to
> the actual numbers (i.e., "2048 blocks of 256-bytes recorded twice"). Seeing
> how the various data stores are organized should bring some clarity to how
> we should represent it.

I agree. This would be useful. Does someone want to volunteer to do
this?

-- 
Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Wed Aug 11 2004 - 12:56:08 BST

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