> > We are trying out extending the maximum length of parent rom sets from 8 to 16 > > characters. Same applies to software-list parent items. > > > > However, so far it looks good, and will most likely become part of 0.178 . > > > > Nice. I always wondered why MAME stuck with MSDOS compatible filenames, especially > since MAME hasn't supported MSDOS since 0.105. Is there a reason to limit it to 16 > rather than 256 (or whatever the limit is for modern operating systems)? What about > spaces and case sensitivity?
This are to be kept forever case insensitive (lowercase is usually desired) as I think all input is converted to a particular case for parsing anyway. Do you want really want to potentially type a 255 character setname in order to issue a command line to run a machine or an image? I don't think anyone does. At 16 characters, it is something that can be identified better, allow for more full game names (less cryptic abbreviations for long titles) and still be typed quickly. Remember, we've had 16 character clone setnames in service for more than 7 years now.
> > This doesn't mean a rash of renames, more likely one or two future sets may have > > longer names than usual. > > > > Too bad. It would be nice to have (for example) Lock_n_Chase.zip instead of lnc.zip. > What about aliases so people can use either the old rom names or new descriptive > ones?
As was mentioned there is no big push to convert setnames over in large quantities. Some games simply don't need it and are universally known by their 8 character setnames (example "mslug" for "metalslug", "dkong" for "donkeykong").. and we probably won't be changing anything like those soon or at all).
|