> it's not always easy to know unless somebody writes down ALL the details from the > original machine when booting up. > > I'd say in at least 95% of cases the actual drives for these things have incorrect > labels on because drives were updated with software updates and the labels never > changed, so even in cases where the chd has a date in the filename it might not be > accurate for this reason. > > Even in MAME several were mislabelled for many years because it was assumed the drive > label was correct and nobody checked service mode.
That makes total sense. I just wish there was a way with existing ones that there could be some kind of data extrapolated from them without it having to be booted. Guess it will simply be a waiting game until someone can emulate some of these beasts enough to show a boot-up and go from there.