MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Making new hash files for MAME (ZX Spectrum)

> - Re-releases should be tagged as clones, ie. software name="3dgamemkdro"
> cloneof="3dgamemk"
> - Do we really need all these [aka ...] comments in the filenames?

Thing is, I had initially removed all those comments from the filenames... but then I realized that not only other softlists keep them but, when going through all these entries, they prove incredibly useful for adding clone info. The AKAs seem to be there whenever a clone has a different title than the original, which would be just crazy to figure out otherwise!
Once they're not needed I guess they could be renamed to "a.dsk", "b.dsk", 2a.dsk", etc, but they're good for reference in the meanwhile.

> - Where multiple disks/sides are included then specify a part_id for each, ie.
> feature name="part_id" value="Side A"/. When selecting items with long filenames in
> the internal UI the useful info like (side a).dsk is usually truncated. Specifying a
> part_id will let the UI offer you either 'Side A' or 'Side B', these should match
> disk labels if known.

Thanks, I was wondering about this but couldn't find it in the Amstrad CPC softlist which I was using for reference.
Would it be fine if that line was added by default to all the images that only have one side preserved (those that don't specify they're including both sides within the same file)? I mean, it would be technically correct and it would also save a lot of hours.

> - alkdevlo: the side b image is only 256 bytes, really?

Downloaded it from WoS to check and:

Looks like it.

> If a publisher is unknown then enter as unknown, or in this case homebrew may be more
> appropriate.

I have a feeling that more or less half of the known Spectrum games to this day may be non-commercial which would label them as "homebrew", so I think that "unknown" would be a better term to use in this case.

> Educational:
> - funsc268: why all the alts? We want to document best available. I'd just keep the
> first, which matches what WoS lists.

Those three alts could be actually redumps that fix some outdated images in World of Spectrum (which has been in a crumbling state for some years now). These are the kind of softlist entries that I (or anybody else) could investigate one day out of boredom and find out which of them is the correct one and which are just bad dump attempts... But until then, it may be a good idea to keep them since there may be a reason for their existance.

> All:
> - No need to include comment for each item indicating source, ie. remove . If you
> want to credit a source then add it to the file header.

I just added those because I saw that all IPFs had that line identifying their SPS release, but I also think that it could be useful for anybody who wants to contribute, so that they know there's no need to go through that DAT anymore and can work on adding the games in later TOSEC updates.

Edited by ICEknight (02/28/19 11:59 PM)