Starscream's post requires a lot of answers, hence please forgive my verbosity
However, mods feel free to split the conversation if we are going too much off topic w.r.t. the original subject
Starscream the 2nd wrote:
Well, currently, it's more about curiousity regarding they way you'd eventually be handling the systems/software
First of all, we will never remove the possibility to load any program from command line (by specifying the full path) or from the GUI (by mounting the images from the directories you store them in). Part of the fun if you owned the emulated system is to load in the emulator the programs you had written back in those days
However, in addition to this classical behavior, we have recently added the new lists of software you mention. These lists allow to load software, from both command line and GUI, by using shortnames like in MAME
Unfortunately, the support of these lists is still preliminary for non-cart software (like tapes and disks).
To give you an example: in the future, there will be an easy way to load the disk/tape you want at start and to cycle through the various disks. But at the moment, if you load a game using shortnames, you can only load from zip the first file listed in the xml and then you must manually change to the other ones by using the internal interface.
As a result, in version 0.139 I suggest to handle multi-image games by mounting them separately through the interface, as in the older MESS versions.
We will see how the new code turns out
Starscream the 2nd wrote:
FM7 and FM77AV lists are split - but there are no separate X1 lists for the standard model(s) and the Turbo variants for example, is this something for the future, or are there specific reasons that will keep them as they are?
As I said some aspects are still in progress, and the current division (or lack of it) depends on the choice of the list creator. However, in the end having separate lists or not should mostly influence the way people have to store the images, not the emulation itself.
E.g. once the support is finalized, you will be able to load a 3.5" floppy inside (more or less) any 3.5" drive for any computer, exactly like it is already possible to load a GameBoy Color game into a B&W GameBoy (and watch the "This game require a GBC" warning screen)
For the specific X1 case, the lack of distinction between games running on a base X1 unit and games requiring Turbo (or even TurboZ), is basically due to my laziness (I wanted to start immediately the PC8801 list I'm currently working on and I postponed the improvements to the X1 list).
However, I'm still not sure if the X1/X1Turbo lists will be split or not (what do you think would be the better solution?)
Starscream the 2nd wrote:
Another question has less to do with Japanese machines, but inofficial hacks/conversions from other systems.
The TOSEC sets often don't mark those, so you have something like Konami titles in the list of the SVI machines, even though these were never officially released (they should be MSX conversions afaik). What's the policy regarding this?
The policy is still under discussion, so I don't have a clear answer at the moment. It would probably be decided system by system (based on things like: who made the SVI conversions from MSX?)
What would be a good policy, in your opinion?
Starscream the 2nd wrote:
Regarding actual mistakes, I think there are some cases where publisher information is wrong (at least as I understand it, e.g. with licensed titles, where the original western publisher is listed instead of the Japanese one). I plan to eventually go through the lists and supply some additional dumps [...] I'll let you know then what exactly I think could merit correction also.
Fixes would really be welcome (e.g. I always found misleading to have Dempa arcade ports labeled as games by Sega/Namco in TOSEC, so I'd like to fix as many inaccuracies as possible)
Especially because there are so many lists and so many files in them that any help in sorting out errors would be great
Similarly, if you want to send me/post lists of the games which requires specific versions of the hardware (like the above-mentioned X1-vs-X1Turbo-vs-X1TurboZ), I will add the correspondent info
Of course, missing dumps are welcome as well
Starscream the 2nd wrote:
(none for the rare systems you asked for, I'm afraid),
Well, I hoped that at least some images had leaked from Japan. Hopefully, one day something will show up and we'll be able to progress further...
In the end, I'm really interested in feedback (both on the new supported systems, on MESS in general and on the new lists) and suggestions from whoever wants to contribute