Thank you very much for posting your original X68000 set, and thank you for doing all of that work in the first place. You're right that the dim format is not ideal, especially because the commonly-used VFIC tool has a potentially nasty bug related to dim files.
Quote from Ashura:
Quote:
The VFIC plugin for DIM images has a bug. It detects 2HS images as 2HC and sets the wrong media flag in the header. Even worse if you convert such an image to another format the size is reduced to 1.2MB (2HC format).
To correct such an image open it in a hex editor and change the first byte from 02h to 01h.
Since all X68000 images in TOSEC have been converted to DIM format a few other games are also affected.
Check the 1.4MB images. If the media flag (first byte) is 03h (2HDE format) or 09h (2HQ format) then the image is OK. If it is 02h change it to 01h.
As for hard disk images, those are still forbidden by TOSEC rules AFAIK. I can understand their reasons for the rule, but installing Japanese games on old quirky flavors of DOS is a huge pain, and in practical terms it means that most users won't ever bother with those games, which is a shame.
If you still have that expansion of the set you submitted to TOSEC, could you upload it if you haven't already?
Neo Kobe will be doing an X68000 set early next year, after the PC98 is finished. As usual I have been trying to source everything from new verified dumps or original Japanese fileshares, but I also analyze other common sets like TOSEC to make the collection as complete as possible. (Usually it's just dupes and overwrites of the original Japanese shares, but sometimes there are surprises...)
Thank you for giving us approval for incorporating your files. It's a great resource.
We take care to include all alternate disks, separated into different sets based on criteria like version/crack/dumping method. The only things that are eliminated are hash-identical duplicates, and obviously corrupt or botched disks.
For the X68000 in particular, we'll be converting all regular 1.2MB 2HD disks to raw, headerless, sequential sector format. This is generally known as XDF format in X68000 circles, but it's identical to the HDM format used for PC98 and FM Towns. This format is best for preservation and eliminates most hash-duplicates. For non-standard disks which cannot be imaged as an XDF file, d88 or dim will be used as appropriate. I'm still researching the details of Gun's dim format, but I'll probably end up using d88 in most cases, as it is well-understood and well-supported by the major emulators and other utilities. In any case, we have taken great pains with the Neo Kobe sets to make sure that the conversions do not break anything.
Doujin software will of course be included! I am very proud of the fact that the Neo Kobe PC-8801 set includes over 1000 individual doujin disks, representing about 15% of the entire set. I'm currently working on the PC-9801 doujin collection right this minute, so no worries there. One interesting thing to note is that several doujin disks are actually multiplatform, like Marionet's Takeout series, so I'm making sure that these disks are included in each of the sets for the relevant systems.
Thanks again for pre-dim TOSEC set. This is massive. I can't wait to dig into the X68.