"Nick Humphries" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > PCs don't have gzip by default. What's wrong with writing a custom > > > compression > > > routine which is portable between the various platforms? > > > >PCs don't have sim-coupe by default. Your point? > > Well, you could make installation a hell of a lot easier by not asking the > user > to find and install various external programs before you can get SimCoupe > running. It's bad enough that you have to find, download and install the sound > chip driver. IMHO everything should be in a single install set, and ideally > as a > single program.
This is a classic OSS problem. You aren't a paying customer therefore if you feel strongly about getting it changed your views don't necessarily count. However you are free to contribute if you are able. For example, I'd imagine that whoever is packaging up SimCoupe these days feels that he's done enough work writing the damn thing without writing a cross-platform compression routine as well. Which is harder? You getting a separate package or someone writing a compression program that could be distributed with SimCoupe? You could always write one and I'm sure it'd be considered ... > > I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find a PC owner who couldn't > > decode - or encode, for that matter - a .gz file. > > I disagree. It depends who you aim the emulator at. If you're going for your > regular emulation fan, then most of them would only recognise .ZIP files or > self-extracting EXEs. Any other type of compression (gzip, lha, arc, whatever) > would require a more techie type of person who'd know about these less common > (in PC-land) compressors. I deal with a lot of Windows based freaks users ;) and 90% of them can handle a .gz if you tell them 'You have to unzip it' Failing that as long as there are clear instructions as for what they have to do 'ie get program x form site y. Install. run file.gz through program x' they're perfectly capable of doing it. > >There's little point to reinventing the wheel, and you'd need to work > >quite hard to make your customized compression algorithm work better than > >gzip anyway. > > Who says it has to be better than gzip? It just needs to be better than having > raw DSK files. Let me guess ... you don't pay for your bandwidth right? Lee. -- I was doing object-oriented assembly at 1 year old ... For some reason my mom insists on calling it "Playing with blocks"
