Re: Hardware gadget for tape loading

[Darren Salt <news@youmustbejoking.demon.com.uk>]

In message <7sai2c$rcr$8@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>
          niallt@dai.ed.ac.uk (Niall Tracey) wrote:

> Ernest R. Schreurs (ernest@wxs.nl) wrote:
[snip]
>> Tapes for one system cannot be loaded on another system. I think it is
>> very confusing to store all sorts of tape files for different machines in
>> the same format. [...]

> Then I'd like to suggest a slight alteration to the implementation of TZX
> files. Provide alternative filename extensions for different machines.

That loses immediately :-)

> The actual encoding could be identical, but the extensions would allow the
> user to distinguish between files for different machines. Say:
>  TII for Apple II
>  T80 for ZX80
>  T81 for ZX81
>  TBC or TAC for BBC Micro/Acorn Electron
>  TAM or TPC for Amstrad CPC
> etc

> (It's a shame some OSes only support 3-letter extensions. [...]

Hmm. RISC OS doesn't recognise filename extensions at all on Filecore-based
filing systems such as ADFS and provides extension-to-filetype mapping in
DOSFS and CDFS (and 3rd-party FSes of this type), so unless we're going to
allocate yet more filetype numbers...

> Then the emulator/archive program could have the 'files of which type'
> options:
>  TZX for [computer being used] - that would show only files with the
>                                  relevant extension.
>  All TZX files                 - that would show all files with an
>                                  extension accepted by the TZX
>                                  standards body.

Fair enough, but why bother when the emulator can multitask and interact with
the Filer? :-)

-- 
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| Spectrum +3, Risc PC, | s zap,uk,eu,org   ** anti-UBE | Northumberland
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