Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Simon Cooke wrote: RAR, of course, has the same benefits. The reason tar + gzip compresses better is because ZIP treats separate files as individual compression blocks; rather than compressing the entire archive. For data that may be repeated across files, tar'ing and then gzipping the file gives better results. Taring and then bzipping might give even better results... FWIW, WinZip handles tar+gzip files... but I'm not so sure about WinZip, with tar.bz2. -- Stuart Brady
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
RAR, of course, has the same benefits. The reason tar + gzip compresses better is because ZIP treats separate files as individual compression Yeees. I am aware of this, oddly enough, having looked at compression schemes in the past grin There's other solid archivers around now, but I still tend to prefer Rar. FWIW, WinZip handles tar+gzip files... Yes, but not .tar.bz2, which a lot of people are switching to (much better compression). Paul -- Sex isn't a hobby, it's an art. -- Richard J. Sexton on net.config
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Hell.. Why not use a tar + gzip combination? :) And why use it, when there is ZIP? 'cause tar+gzip compresses better, as a general rule. Paul -- God loves kids, cuz he can't fool (mature) adults ... -- Gabe Carlson on alt.atheism
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
From: Paul Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hell.. Why not use a tar + gzip combination? :) And why use it, when there is ZIP? 'cause tar+gzip compresses better, as a general rule. RAR, of course, has the same benefits. The reason tar + gzip compresses better is because ZIP treats separate files as individual compression blocks; rather than compressing the entire archive. For data that may be repeated across files, tar'ing and then gzipping the file gives better results. FWIW, WinZip handles tar+gzip files... Si
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation
On Thu, Jul 15, 1999 at 03:18:56PM +, James R Curry wrote: Don't tell me that Most users have no problems with installing x before y., I've spoken to so many people who have trouble understanding concepts like Root directory and the difference between free hard-drive space and RAM. We have MSc students in Computation who send email support saying can I have some more memory when they actually mean disk quota... imc
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation
The first rule you'll learn when in any support job (or involved with anything that's directly available to the public): People are stupid. Nick
RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation
The other rule: Think of the most stupid thing that you think is possible, and then bet your last dollar on someone beating it. (Or, at least, that's what my old driving instuctor said to me) Justin -Original Message- From: Nick Humphries [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 16, 1999 9:39 AM To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation The first rule you'll learn when in any support job (or involved with anything that's directly available to the public): People are stupid. Nick
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation
From: Nick Humphries [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject:Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation Date sent: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 09:38:35 +0100 Send reply to: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no The first rule you'll learn when in any support job (or involved with anything that's directly available to the public): People are stupid. Nick Amen to that... -- James R Curry - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Balloon Doggies DEMANDED it!
RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation
From: Justin Skists [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no' sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject:RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation Date sent: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 10:01:48 +0100 Send reply to: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no The other rule: Think of the most stupid thing that you think is possible, and then bet your last dollar on someone beating it. (Or, at least, that's what my old driving instuctor said to me) Justin I open the bidding with the woman who would receive her new credit card, with the notice saying Cut up your card now, to which she would cut up the new card that just arrived... -- James R Curry - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Balloon Doggies DEMANDED it!
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Aley Keprt wrote: Most of the current Sam-related stuff at NVG and other servers is ZIPped (pk). Which is shareware. :-( We have ZIP sources as well, and ZIP can pack multiple files. That's positive, isn't it? It could be. It depends on whether you want multiple files, really. All of this stuff doesn't really matter /that/ much. It's not worth getting all upset about, even if I am moaning a bit too much. :-) -- Stuart Brady
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation
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. Nick Humphries. No, that's wrong. I though it is a pretty clear why SAA1099 emulation is in separate package. 1.) I worked on sound, Allan worked on SimCoupe. New versions came paralelly. This is faster. 2.) My sound emulation isn't concerned into SimCoupe. It is publicly usable in any SAA1099 interested software. So I publish it in its own package. Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
- Original Message - From: Justin Skists [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Sent: 1. července 1999 18:35 Subject: RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a zip, too. They've always used zip in the past, and they see no reason to change. Gzip *is* better for single files, though - simply because it can *only* contain one file. Hell.. Why not use a tar + gzip combination? :) And why use it, when there is ZIP? Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
- Original Message - From: Stuart Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Sent: 1. července 1999 17:45 Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Nick Humphries wrote: 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. You can read gz files with zlib if you want to do it internally -- it's sort of what it's for, really... 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. WinZip can handle gz files, and I think Zip Magic can, too. Right-click and choose the extract option... hardly rocket science, is it? Zlib can be used on Win32, DOS, a lot of UNIX systems, and probablly MacOS. I *really* hope you're not thinking of placing sam disks in *DOS* executables... that's just completely insane. Also, I *really* hate to have to point this out, but zip's method is the *same* as gzip's... The difference is that gzip compresses a single file, which is all you need. Zip files would have the complication of extracting the dsk or sad file from the archive. If there's more than one file, which one do you use? Gzip is better for single files. End of story. Please try to read some documentation on the subject. Most of the current Sam-related stuff at NVG and other servers is ZIPped (pk). So I preffer this way. Maybe we can include support for gzip and zip, but this only means longer code. Since GZIP is not able to pack more files together, I consider ZIP better. Imagine you have one ZIP with all Fred issues, and when you run it, emulator askes you what volume to you want. ZIP files can contain file_id.diz or other description .txt file. This is not possible when using gzip. (I think.) What's wrong with zlib? Why the hell would people want to write something new when gz is better and is easier to implement? -- Stuart Brady We have ZIP sources as well, and ZIP can pack multiple files. That's positive, isn't it? Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
- Original Message - From: Nick Humphries [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Sent: 1. èervence 1999 17:23 Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a -Original Message- From: Stuart Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Date: Thursday, July 01, 1999 3:45 PM Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Nick Humphries wrote: PCs don't have gzip by default. PCs? You mean *WINDOWS*, don't you? Yes, which is a pretty important piece of information if you're developing for Windows... snipped OTT anti-MSoft ranting And, as a Windows user, I'd like to say that when downloading software, most of it has been in pkzip/winzip files (*.zip) rather than gzip files (*.gz). Not as it is on Linux, I know, but another pretty important piece of information when you're developing for Windows. Anyway, all this is moot since, as Allan pointed out, using the zlib library eliminates the need for the user to somehow find a copy of gzip. So my solution was a good one after all... Partially, since user usually wants to pack all his existing uncopressed files. This must be done using GZIP. Again, I preffer ZIP's possibility of packing multiple files. Nick Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Nick Humphries wrote: PCs don't have gzip by default. What's wrong with writing a custom compression routine which is portable between the various platforms? Why reinvent the wheel *again*? WinZip can handle gzip, and most windows machines have winzip. If they don't, I can supply a Win95 version of gzip (precompiled), and bzip2. Although you are right, I can say: WinZip supports ZIP. So we can use zip. Why do you think we should use gzip, when WinZip supports it. WinZip uses zip too. In addition WinZip is not free, anybody mentioned? Of course, we can find GNU GPL zip/unzip as well as gzip. Paul Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
I was being sarcastic... :) -Original Message- From: Aley Keprt [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 15, 1999 12:59 PM To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Original Message - From: Justin Skists [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Sent: 1. července 1999 18:35 Subject: RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a zip, too. They've always used zip in the past, and they see no reason to change. Gzip *is* better for single files, though - simply because it can *only* contain one file. Hell.. Why not use a tar + gzip combination? :) And why use it, when there is ZIP? Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Martin Fitzpatrick wrote: I think the point is that the custom compression would be built into the main Sim-Coupe program, so whenever you open up a compressed DSK file, its automatically decompressed on the fly... So the user doesn't even know Zlib would be built in, too. Anyway, the only problem people have with using seperate programs is that they sometimes have to be downloaded seperately. If saaemu was distributed along with simcoupe, people would be quite happy. -- Stuart Brady Dear Stuart, I explained this many times. Do you think Quake II, Diablo, Starcraft, and Windows 95 should be distributed together when people want to use them all? Probably not. And that's the case of SAAemu. It is a atandalone program, which is distributed separatedly. Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a - Sound emulation
No, that's wrong. I though it is a pretty clear why SAA1099 emulation is in separate package. 1.) I worked on sound, Allan worked on SimCoupe. New versions came paralelly. This is faster. 2.) My sound emulation isn't concerned into SimCoupe. It is publicly usable in any SAA1099 interested software. So I publish it in its own package. So, perhaps it should come with Simcoupe, in a format that can still be used independantly, and with a pointer as to where to get the stand-alone distribution. The installer for Simcoupe could simply take advantage of the fact that the SAA1099 emulator is within the Simcoupe package, without combining the two in some ireversible manner. Perhaps there could also be a legend reading SA1099 emulator used with permission I agree with you wanting to keep your work available as a stand-alone package, but if we want the more general user to investigate SimCoupe, the installation should be as straight-forward as possible. Don't tell me that Most users have no problems with installing x before y., I've spoken to so many people who have trouble understanding concepts like Root directory and the difference between free hard-drive space and RAM. Yeah, there are a lot of intelligent PC users, but there are a lot of stupid ones too... -- James R Curry - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Balloon Doggies DEMANDED it!
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 21:17:48 +0100, David L [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course the whole calender is complete shite... about 5-20 years out of synch depending on who you believe! I thinks someone elses calender is a bit out of sync.. 1998 ?? I nearly list this post in the depths of my archives (oh errr ;) -- Dean Liversidge [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Just trying to re-address the balance a little! -Original Message- From: Dean Liversidge [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Date: 03 July 1999 10:01 Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Thanks for using NetForward! http://www.netforward.com v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 21:17:48 +0100, David L [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course the whole calender is complete shite... about 5-20 years out of synch depending on who you believe! I thinks someone elses calender is a bit out of sync.. 1998 ?? I nearly list this post in the depths of my archives (oh errr ;) -- Dean Liversidge [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Bugger! Hope it waits until after the Manchester Mardi Gras! -Original Message- From: Ian Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no' sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Date: 01 July 1999 17:50 Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a WW3? I thought it was just the end of the world on July 4th. Of course, on uk.media there is someone claiming that the earth will be wiped out by a comet which will first become visible during the eclipse in August. imc
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Of course the whole calender is complete shite... about 5-20 years out of synch depending on who you believe! Off topic: Why does the local Catholic church think 2000 -1 = 2000? -Original Message- From: Robert van der Veeke [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Date: 01 July 1999 21:49 Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Van: Ian Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: 'sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no' Onderwerp: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Datum: donderdag, juli 01, 1999 6:44 On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 05:35:16PM +0100, Justin Skists wrote: Relax - After all, WW3 supposed to start any day now and last for 27 years... (Bugger, I've been reading too much about Nostradamus) WW3? I thought it was just the end of the world on July 4th. Of course, on uk.media there is someone claiming that the earth will be wiped out by a comet which will first become visible during the eclipse in August. oh yes A great fire from the sky, and the king of mongools would rise again. The head of the Pakinstani nuclear weapons programs goes by the name of Khan and claims to be a descendant from Dhengiz Khan. And the new city that is destroyed by fire could Novi Sad as well wich happens to mean New city or New garden, and we all know what those people got on their heads the past months. Spooky stuff i must say :), but it could be sept(ember) before shit happens -- Robert van der Veeke, aka RJV Graphics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Currently listening to : Rurouni Kenshin - Brilliant collection - Char's Gelgoog was using a double-bladed beam saber nearly 20 years before Darth Maul came down the pike!
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
David L wrote: Of course the whole calender is complete shite... about 5-20 years out of synch depending on who you believe! Off topic: Why does the local Catholic church think 2000 -1 = 2000? Is it a joke or a serious question? g Martin -- Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ#: 11077801 AOL/CServeIM: Flupert
The end of times and other silly stuff (was Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a)
Van: David L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Onderwerp: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Datum: woensdag, juli 01, 1998 10:17 Of course the whole calender is complete shite... about 5-20 years out of synch depending on who you believe! mmmh 15 years back in time, I could be young again, yesss young bwahahahah (oh shutup, your only turning 35 this year :Ed) Off topic: Why does the local Catholic church think 2000 -1 = 2000? It should be actually 2004 i guess, but who cares, we are going to party big time in 185 days time. Completely off topic now: How far are they with the London Eye Millenium Ferris wheel? Because my dad is working on that project and i hope he makes it back to the Netherlands next friday. -- Robert van der Veeke, aka RJV Graphics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Currently listening to : Rurouni Kenshin - Brilliant collection - Char's Gelgoog was using a double-bladed beam saber nearly 20 years before Darth Maul came down the pike!
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Ian Collier wrote: On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 02:01:34PM +0100, Nick Humphries wrote: PCs don't have gzip by default. What's wrong with writing a custom compression routine which is portable between the various platforms? Er, PCs don't have that custom compression routine by default either. I think the point is that the custom compression would be built into the main Sim-Coupe program, so whenever you open up a compressed DSK file, its automatically decompressed on the fly... So the user doesn't even know Martin -- Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ#: 11077801 AOL/CServeIM: Flupert
Re: The end of times and other silly stuff (was Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a)
Completely off topic now: How far are they with the London Eye Millenium Ferris wheel? Because my dad is working on that project and i hope he makes it back to the Netherlands next friday. They're still going ahead with that then, are they? (I guess so) Isn't is wave powered and going to take ten minutes or so to do a complete circle? It might be nice looking out over the london skyline for a second or two but ten minutes?!
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Nick Humphries wrote: PCs don't have gzip by default. What's wrong with writing a custom compression routine which is portable between the various platforms? Why reinvent the wheel *again*? WinZip can handle gzip, and most windows machines have winzip. If they don't, I can supply a Win95 version of gzip (precompiled), and bzip2. (I thought I could give tar as well, but that be b0rken.) Paul
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Andrew Collier wrote: Two months ago, you were saying people should be careful about piracy, ie not allowing image files of protected disks to be made. Which I think is probably a sensible idea... But don't you think that memory-snapshots will also encourage piracy or illegal copying? We play arcade game tournaments. I'm the organizer and I need to see how high score people got, that's mean I need an encrypted snapshot of whole Sam program. That's all. And when we play Snake Mania I though it is legal. Aley [eili] Keprt - student, programmer (multimedia soft. etc.) phone: +420-68-538 70 35 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** http://get.to/aley
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Martin Fitzpatrick wrote: I think the point is that the custom compression would be built into the main Sim-Coupe program, so whenever you open up a compressed DSK file, its automatically decompressed on the fly... So the user doesn't even know Zlib would be built in, too. Anyway, the only problem people have with using seperate programs is that they sometimes have to be downloaded seperately. If saaemu was distributed along with simcoupe, people would be quite happy. -- Stuart Brady
Re: The end of times and other silly stuff (was Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a)
Van: Andrew Gale [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Onderwerp: Re: The end of times and other silly stuff (was Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a) Datum: vrijdag, juli 02, 1999 12:36 Completely off topic now: How far are they with the London Eye Millenium Ferris wheel? Because my dad is working on that project and i hope he makes it back to the Netherlands next friday. They're still going ahead with that then, are they? (I guess so) Isn't is wave powered and going to take ten minutes or so to do a complete circle? It might be nice looking out over the london skyline for a second or two but ten minutes?! Going ahead? :) they are almost finished (at least the part that my dad and his shipmates of Takmarine play in this project). -- Robert van der Veeke, aka RJV Graphics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Currently listening to : Rurouni Kenshin - Brilliant collection - Char's Gelgoog was using a double-bladed beam saber nearly 20 years before Darth Maul came down the pike!
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Aley Keprt wrote _with more than 80 columns per line:_ Sam-snapshot (whole memory+cpu+audio video state) is planned, but haven't realised yet, since we must discuss the fileformat at first. (I don't want to make my own standards as Si does.) Maybe we could use something like Z80 fileformat used on ZXS (it has internal compression - very necessary for Sam). Good compression is something that you really need on the SAM, so that's why I *really* don't think you should use Z80's method. You'd get better compression from something like zlib. -- Stuart Brady
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
From: Andrew Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Stuart Brady wrote: Good compression is something that you really need on the SAM, so that's why I *really* don't think you should use Z80's method. You'd get better compression from something like zlib. Personally I don't see anything wrong with the currect tactic of saving .dsk images and gzipping them. PCs don't have gzip by default. What's wrong with writing a custom compression routine which is portable between the various platforms? Nick
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Nick Humphries wrote: From: Andrew Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] Personally I don't see anything wrong with the currect tactic of saving .dsk images and gzipping them. 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? 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. 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. Andrew -- -- Andrew Collier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --My other -- http://mnemotech.ucam.org -- .sig is a -- Part 3 Materials Science, Cambridge -- PDF file --
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
From: Andrew Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Nick Humphries wrote: From: Andrew Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] Personally I don't see anything wrong with the currect tactic of saving .dsk images and gzipping them. 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. 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. 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. Nick Humphries.
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
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
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 02:01:34PM +0100, Nick Humphries wrote: PCs don't have gzip by default. What's wrong with writing a custom compression routine which is portable between the various platforms? Er, PCs don't have that custom compression routine by default either. Anyway, you could use zip instead of gzip as they are rather similar formats when only one file is involved. (You can even make a single-file zip and call it foo.gz, and gunzip won't even notice the difference.) imc
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Hi All, The easiest way to provide gnuzip compression without the need for an external compressing agent is to link the program against the zlib library, and use its file i/o api. This will automatically generate gzipped disk images on the fly. This was one of the enhancements I was going to do to SimCoupe if I ever (or do ever) get some time off between writing ARM CPU models. regards Allan +--+---+ | Allan Skillman | There are five flavours of resons, the | | EDA Group| elementary particles of magic : up, down, | | ARM | sideways, sex-appeal and peppermint. | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | - Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies) | +--+---+
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Nick Humphries wrote: From: Andrew Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. Fine. But as far as I'm concerned, the point still stands. I hardly know anyone who uses a PC at all and doesn't have a program capable of ungzipping, and who wouldn't be afraid to use it. After all, SimCoupe is zipped itself. If you've managed to uncompress that, then the chances are that the same uncompress program can also handle gzip files. Gzip is *way* more common than lha and arc which you mentioned. 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. No, it has to better than the existing solution if you're going to persuade a programmer to spend his time on writing the darned thing. In other words, it has got to be better than a gzipped .dsk file which is what everybody currently uses. Andrew -- -- Andrew Collier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --My other -- http://mnemotech.ucam.org -- .sig is a -- Part 3 Materials Science, Cambridge -- PDF file --
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 02:58:34PM +0100, Lee Willis wrote: I deal with a lot of Windows based freaks users ;) and 90% ^^ When you do this as a joke you are supposed to write '^H', not put them in literally... imc
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
From: Lee Willis [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. I know all about the problems involved in trying to please the non-paying punter. However, I was just making a suggestion that I feel would be an improvement to the compression feature as it's at a design stage. 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? Actually, I do. At worst, the difference between a gzipped DSK file and a custom-compressed zipfile should only be in the order of 10s of K. That's only an extra few seconds of download time. Nick
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
From: Allan Skillman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi All, The easiest way to provide gnuzip compression without the need for an external compressing agent is to link the program against the zlib library, and use its file i/o api. This will automatically generate gzipped disk images on the fly. Fair enough. Reminds me of when I was using a zip library a few years ago (Greenleaf?). It's a lot neater to have compression/uncompression withing the code itself rather than doing a system() or whatever to an external program. Nick Humphries
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Nick Humphries wrote: PCs don't have gzip by default. PCs? You mean *WINDOWS*, don't you? If you buy a Lintel box, you *do* get gzip, along with zip. Windows doesn't come with any real compression tools -- You can't even use *cabs* properly. How MS can consider a web browser an essential part of the OS and fail to write a zip program... roflol at MS What's wrong with writing a custom compression routine which is portable between the various platforms? What??? IIRC, gzip has been ported to most OSs, and gz is even supported by WinZip. Zlib also works on a wide range of platforms, which makes gz support *really* easy to write. I get the feeling that gzip-style compression *might* just be the most commonly used method, somehow. It's also supposed to be really easy to use. Ever used pk or winzip? Hmm... -- Stuart Brady
RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Wow.. An ARM CPU model on the SAM? :) -Original Message- From: Allan Skillman [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 01, 1999 3:16 PM To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Hi All, The easiest way to provide gnuzip compression without the need for an external compressing agent is to link the program against the zlib library, and use its file i/o api. This will automatically generate gzipped disk images on the fly. This was one of the enhancements I was going to do to SimCoupe if I ever (or do ever) get some time off between writing ARM CPU models. regards Allan +--+-- -+ | Allan Skillman | There are five flavours of resons, the | | EDA Group| elementary particles of magic : up, down, | | ARM | sideways, sex-appeal and peppermint. | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | - Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies) | +--+-- -+
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
-Original Message- From: Stuart Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Date: Thursday, July 01, 1999 3:45 PM Subject: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Nick Humphries wrote: PCs don't have gzip by default. PCs? You mean *WINDOWS*, don't you? Yes, which is a pretty important piece of information if you're developing for Windows... snipped OTT anti-MSoft ranting And, as a Windows user, I'd like to say that when downloading software, most of it has been in pkzip/winzip files (*.zip) rather than gzip files (*.gz). Not as it is on Linux, I know, but another pretty important piece of information when you're developing for Windows. Anyway, all this is moot since, as Allan pointed out, using the zlib library eliminates the need for the user to somehow find a copy of gzip. So my solution was a good one after all... Nick
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Nick Humphries wrote: 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. You can read gz files with zlib if you want to do it internally -- it's sort of what it's for, really... 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. WinZip can handle gz files, and I think Zip Magic can, too. Right-click and choose the extract option... hardly rocket science, is it? Zlib can be used on Win32, DOS, a lot of UNIX systems, and probablly MacOS. I *really* hope you're not thinking of placing sam disks in *DOS* executables... that's just completely insane. Btw, you're mixing PC and DOS up -- DOS is an OPERATING SYSTEM. PC is a PERSONAL COMPUTER. Got that? Also, I *really* hate to have to point this out, but zip's method is the *same* as gzip's... The difference is that gzip compresses a single file, which is all you need. Zip files would have the complication of extracting the dsk or sad file from the archive. If there's more than one file, which one do you use? Gzip is better for single files. End of story. Please try to read some documentation on the subject. Who says it has to be better than gzip? It just needs to be better than having raw DSK files. What's wrong with zlib? Why the hell would people want to write something new when gz is better and is easier to implement? -- Stuart Brady
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Nick Humphries wrote: And, as a Windows user, I'd like to say that when downloading software, most of it has been in pkzip/winzip files (*.zip) rather than gzip files (*.gz). Not as it is on Linux, I know, but another pretty important piece of information when you're developing for Windows. There's no reason why Windows users can't use tar.gz -- I'm sure that if someone distributed some software in it, people would still be able to use it. Of course, there's no reason why Windows users shouldn't use zip, too. They've always used zip in the past, and they see no reason to change. Gzip *is* better for single files, though - simply because it can *only* contain one file. Anyway, all this is moot since, as Allan pointed out, using the zlib library eliminates the need for the user to somehow find a copy of gzip. So my solution was a good one after all... I thought you wanted to write something new? Anyway, nobody ever suggested that using the gzip executable was the best way of doing it. Gzip files can be read using zlib, you know. -- Stuart Brady
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
From: Stuart Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED] What's wrong with zlib? Why the hell would people want to write something new when gz is better and is easier to implement? Of course, the original poster was advocating gzipping DSK files, which I took to mean doing that either via the command line, or by a system() call (or exec() or whatever) to the external program. No one mentioned zlib at that point which was why I advocated having a compression method within the program itself. At the time I didn't know about zlib, having only worked with compression libraries you had to pay for. As it turned out, I wasn't being unreasonable at all about asking for fewer exteral programs for SimCoupe to be reliant on. Nick Humphries. PS. It might be an idea if you read all the messages in a thread before you respond, and that you take time to understand where I'm coming from. PPS. Don't you ever get tired of needlessly pointing out the obvious and talking down to me? And for goodness sake stop being pedantic about my usage of the term PC. You knew what I meant. I knew what I meant. Everyone knew what I meant. Or did you not know that there's also a DOS and Windows version of SimCoupe? *sigh*
RE: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
zip, too. They've always used zip in the past, and they see no reason to change. Gzip *is* better for single files, though - simply because it can *only* contain one file. Hell.. Why not use a tar + gzip combination? :) Relax - After all, WW3 supposed to start any day now and last for 27 years... (Bugger, I've been reading too much about Nostradamus) Justin.
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 05:35:16PM +0100, Justin Skists wrote: Relax - After all, WW3 supposed to start any day now and last for 27 years... (Bugger, I've been reading too much about Nostradamus) WW3? I thought it was just the end of the world on July 4th. Of course, on uk.media there is someone claiming that the earth will be wiped out by a comet which will first become visible during the eclipse in August. imc
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Of course, the original poster was advocating gzipping DSK files, which I took to mean doing that either via the command line, or by a system() call (or exec() or whatever) to the external program. No one mentioned zlib at that point which was why I advocated having a compression method within the program itself. Ah... sorry. My posting said that it would be better to use zlib. I didn't actually bother to explain what it was though. :-( I sort of assumed that you knew as much as me, and that the idea of modifying code from gzip or using zlib would be obvious... I thought that you were against using gz files because you were suggesting writing something completely new, even after I had mentioned zlib. At the time I didn't know about zlib, having only worked with compression libraries you had to pay for. As it turned out, I wasn't being unreasonable at all about asking for fewer exteral programs for SimCoupe to be reliant on. There's nothing wrong with wanting that, but I don't remember saying that there was. I just assumed that you'd have typed zlib and gzip into a search engine, though... PS. It might be an idea if you read all the messages in a thread before you respond, and that you take time to understand where I'm coming from. Maybe you'd like to read some documentation before dismissing ideas. You seemed to be suggesting that no windows programs could read gz... Maybe if you say I think... you'll get a nicer response. :-) PPS. Don't you ever get tired of needlessly pointing out the obvious and talking down to me? And for goodness sake stop being pedantic about my usage of the term PC. You knew what I meant. I knew what I meant. Everyone knew what I meant. Or did you not know that there's also a DOS and Windows version of SimCoupe? Ok -- point taken... You are taking it a bit too seriously, though. -- Stuart Brady
Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a
Van: Ian Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: 'sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no' Onderwerp: Re: New: SimCoupe 0.783a Datum: donderdag, juli 01, 1999 6:44 On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 05:35:16PM +0100, Justin Skists wrote: Relax - After all, WW3 supposed to start any day now and last for 27 years... (Bugger, I've been reading too much about Nostradamus) WW3? I thought it was just the end of the world on July 4th. Of course, on uk.media there is someone claiming that the earth will be wiped out by a comet which will first become visible during the eclipse in August. oh yes A great fire from the sky, and the king of mongools would rise again. The head of the Pakinstani nuclear weapons programs goes by the name of Khan and claims to be a descendant from Dhengiz Khan. And the new city that is destroyed by fire could Novi Sad as well wich happens to mean New city or New garden, and we all know what those people got on their heads the past months. Spooky stuff i must say :), but it could be sept(ember) before shit happens -- Robert van der Veeke, aka RJV Graphics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Currently listening to : Rurouni Kenshin - Brilliant collection - Char's Gelgoog was using a double-bladed beam saber nearly 20 years before Darth Maul came down the pike!
