Folders vs Zips

[cmavroudis]

Hi,

I noticed that the latest TOSEC roundup on archive.org (2020-09-11) has all the various roms/files etc. for each systems in folders rather than as in previous releases in zip files.

Is this a deliberate move by TOSEC or just something done by whoever uploaded to archive?

So many emulators expect zip files and they save so much space too when zipped.

I cant actually rezip them from folders to filenames are the names are too long and it would take so long to do. So im stuck as to whether to actually update TOSEC moving forward.

Thanks

[Maddog]

Hello, nothing has changed in TOSEC dats.
Probably it was whoever uploaded those to archive that chose to have them unzipped.

By the way, I was not able to identify which is the collection you are referring to.
The closest I saw (and the one I suspect you are referring to) was one titled "TOSEC (The Old School Emulation Center) 2020 Roundup" with Added date of 2020-09-11 18:15:03. But if that's indeed the one you are referring to, files are still zipped in there. You can see on the "Download Options" section on the right that it contains 1909 zips.
Are you sure that whatever software you used to download the collection didn't "helpfully" try to unzip everything for you?

[Cassiel]

It should also be noted anything uploaded to archive.org is unconnected with the official TOSEC website and dev.

[cmavroudis]

Cheers for the replies and noted Cassiel,

Correct Maddog, the archive.org page is the "TOSEC_2020_Roundup" you mentioned

There are indeed 1909 zip files however within each of these zip files, the individual roms/software are arranged in sub folders so when you extract you get a folder of subfolders rather than a folder of zip files like this:

"Acorn BBC - Applications - [BIN] (TOSEC-v2013-10-16)/Softwarefile1/all the related files"
"Acorn BBC - Applications - [BIN] (TOSEC-v2013-10-16)/softwarefile2/all the related files"
"Acorn BBC - Applications - [BIN] (TOSEC-v2013-10-16)/softwarefile3/all the related files"

Out of interest, how do you store your TOSEC files?  Do you store each programme/software file in its own zip which is in turn stored in the relevant folder such as
"Acorn BBC - Applications - [BIN] (TOSEC-v2013-10-16)/softwarefile1.zip"
"Acorn BBC - Applications - [BIN] (TOSEC-v2013-10-16)/softwarefile2.zip"
"Acorn BBC - Applications - [BIN] (TOSEC-v2013-10-16)/softwarefile3.zip"

I personally prefer the zip approach and given its not possible to zip back up folders with such long names I guess I have to ignore this latest archive page :-(


Thanks

[Maddog]

Yes, I see what you mean now. I didn't check .zip contents at all, my mistake.
Yes, this was definitely uploader's preference.
Since you ask, I do prefer .zip myself, which is the default that programs like RomVault and ClrMAME Pro are doing.
If you want to convert all those unpacked files to packed, probably RomVault is your best option. But it would probably make the computer grind for a day or two if you were to try that to a complete TOSEC. 

[cmavroudis]

Cheers for the reply, Rom Vault it is! :-)

[Tim2460]

This is the new option from RomVault that ease my uploading to a certain website.

There are pro & cons for each method (and Romvault latests version brings 3 if i remember well).