>>XML is platform neutral because it's basically ASCII, right?
Yes, true, but I think of XML more as a Web technology requiring a complex
parsing engine. I'm not a Web programmer so my thoughts on XML are probably
somewhat broken.
Another comment was made about the difference between what's actually on the
media versus what the CPU actually sees. We would thus need to capture the
raw data stream from the "heads" side of the controller in order to
regenerate a usable original media from the metafile.
For emulator use, we can grind this metafile through a translation program
to get the bytestream. OR, the metafile could contain both types of data
(using the container file and metadirectory idea from earlier).
What we really need is PDF for magnetic media :-)
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces_at_classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Vintage Computer
Festival
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 3:23 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Let's develop an open-source media archive standard
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Cini, Richard wrote:
> This example represents the block data using metatags...I guess along the
> "XML" part of the thread.
>
> I was thinking similarly to you but not using XML metadata:
>
> ;Hardware descriptor
> MFGR
> MACHINE
> SUBTYPE
> DRIVETYPE (this of course defines what follows)
> ;for floppy
> DRIVESIZE
> ENCODING
> TRACKS
> SECTORS
> SECTSIZE
> ;HexData
> ; Each record or group of records contains the related media data. The
> address record would be used for encoding the metadata
> 00TTSSHH: (00-track-sector-head)
>
> I looked to Intel Hex (or Motorola) because it had built-in CRC facilities
> and it was human-readable ASCII. The drive and machine description could
be
> encoded in special MOT records probably.
I like the XML style because it's more explicit; more human-readable.
> XML is more a more "current" technology but I was trying to keep with the
> platform neutrality by sticking to text-only and not assuming the use of
any
> other technology like XML.
XML is platform neutral because it's basically ASCII, right?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
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Received on Wed Aug 11 2004 - 14:41:13 BST