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General Discussion / Using xxHash
« Last post by artifex on September 18, 2018, 09:06:50 PM »
Just found xxHash and thinking it would be great to use in TOSEC as an additional checksum value. Looks incredibly fast which is fine on big sets. Implemented already for a bunch of languages.

xxHash homepage
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TOSEC Tools / Guys, where are TOSEC official tools!? Is that part of TOSEC dead?
« Last post by NLS on September 13, 2018, 09:37:32 AM »
So, if someone goes to TOSEC downloads, except of course the dats themselves and TNC, there is the tools section that supposedly does all the magic...
Let see...

1) ADF-Workshop. An application by Crashdisk, last version in 2015, which is fair if it works. Nice, but of course only for Amiga ADF.

2) TOSEC Dat Explorer... Now we are talking. Nice for clean-up etc. Erm... actually there is no app here. Nice detail: It was created "last year" (with no year mentioned in the article, so it is perpetually "last year" any year). Erm... ok.

3) TIM. Boom. First sentence is that it is discontinued. Then you read about nasty bugs and outdated and that it shouldn't be used. YET, it is available to download! (Why? Honoring the preservation nature of TOSEC? :D  Or to punish people that get it and don't read the description?)

4) Last, the big name, TUGID. The ultimate. Only it is... "very old" and listed for historic reasons (at least there is no download for people to ruin their collection). And it points you to... TIM (see above). Damn. That's a tricky one.

I think it is safe to say that this section is in dire need of a clean up.
And actual tools to use would be a plus?
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TOSEC Naming Convention / Re: Help With ROM Naming
« Last post by Maddog on September 12, 2018, 10:05:46 PM »
Roms with known problems are listed in TOSEC with the Dump Info Flags.
So, if you see [b ] it's bad, [h] is hack, [m] is unintentional modification, [o ] is overdump etc.
Read the Dump Info Flags segment of TNC if you need more info.
If no such flags appear, it means that to the dat maker's knowledge the rom is OK.
Actually our approach and Good Sets approach on this matter are very similar.

Jaguar emulation is very poor at the moment, so many of the games don't work properly or even at all.
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TOSEC Naming Convention / Re: Help With ROM Naming
« Last post by ROMTaker on September 12, 2018, 05:13:18 AM »
UPDATE:

After I played around with some emulation of the Jaguar on my end, another naming question popped up that I was hoping you could answer. I'm using Virtual Jaguar, and frankly the emulation of Breakout 2000 is pretty bad. It's jerky and there is a lot of blinking of textures in and out. Not sure if this is the emulator or what. But this got me thinking.

Even if I can assume a ROM like this is probably already a US region and the numerical code indicates its the retail copy, what info can I ascertain about the quality of the ROM itself? No-Intro goes without saying, as they already take the best dumped version. GoodSets will mark them with a code stating how good or bad they are. This TOSEC file doesn't have any info, so how will I know what quality ROM I have?
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TOSEC Naming Convention / Re: Help With ROM Naming
« Last post by ROMTaker on September 11, 2018, 04:43:15 AM »
Thanks Maddog! Very helpful! I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future, but now I know just the gent to turn to  ;)
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TOSEC Naming Convention / Re: Help With ROM Naming
« Last post by Maddog on September 10, 2018, 07:17:57 PM »
When naming, apart from TNC rules we also try to include other information that describes the rom at hand. Sometimes this can be cryptic to someone less familiar with a system. You have a good and valid question there. Here goes: :)

These two ROMs aren't actually that hard to find, they also exist in the MAME software list.
https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/hash/jaguar.xml

J9093E is the actual retail release by Telegames. This number is the game serial, see it on scan here. In most cases where we have to use [more info] tags with weird numbers like these, the contained info is a serial (or ringcode when viewing CDs in TOSEC ISO). This is used when more than one version of the game in question is known.

Not much is known about the xx0327. It appears to be a prototype. Quite obviously this didn't have a proper serial number, however, many prototypes have a handwritten or printed date on their label. In this case, it seems that this build was made on 27 March, year not mentioned. Hence xx0327.
Software list entry has this to say about it:

Quote
<!-- The following are roms that have been leaked onto the internet, but don't seem to be proper dumps of cartridges.
These have been converted to j64 format with the universal header -->

Quote
<software name="breakoutp" cloneof="breakout" supported="no">
      <description>Breakout 2000 (Prototype, xx0327)</description>
      <year>1996</year>
      <publisher>Telegames</publisher>
      <part name="cart" interface="jaguar_cart">
         <dataarea name="rom" size="2097152">
            <rom name="breakout2000 (prototype) 3-27.j64" size="2097152" crc="20dbff9f" sha1="c8f29d04dacce1a83a1c93ab351737795d0f55db" offset="000000" status="baddump" />
         </dataarea>
      </part>
   </software>

Therefore, if you are only looking for retail set, the one you need is J9093E. I am not very familiar with Jaguar, but AFAIK there are no regions in its' carts.
In addition, I feel that creator of the dat should have included the information that the xx0327 is a prototype, as this possibility exists in TNC and would have allowed immediate recognition of this fact. I will amend for the next TOSEC release, so it will be clearer in the future.
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TOSEC Naming Convention / Help With ROM Naming
« Last post by ROMTaker on September 10, 2018, 05:21:43 PM »
New member here, still trying to get my bearings. Was trying to make sense of the TOSEC naming convections, as I've not had as much experience with them as GoodSet or No-Intro. Have read the docs on it, but still am confused about a few things. For example:

Here are two ROM folders I have from a TOSEC set (for the same game on Atari Jaguar):

{TOSEC} Breakout 2000 (1996)(Telegames)[J9093E]
{TOSEC} Breakout 2000 (1996)(Telegames)[xx0327]

First, I'm going for a US-only retail set. Since it doesn't have the (US) tag, should I assume it could be from another region? Second, what does the [J9093E] and [xx0327] signify? It should also be noted this ROM doesn't exist in any other GoodSets or No-Intro anywhere.
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General Discussion / Wait, what? Gamate Roms are in Tosec?!
« Last post by Kodoichi on September 04, 2018, 05:34:59 PM »
I still have the original handheld console and a few games. Didn't know that after all these years the ROMs where finally dumped and are now playable with MESS/MAME :D :o
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Errors & Contributions / Re: Texas Instruments Firmware Dumps
« Last post by Maddog on September 04, 2018, 04:35:15 PM »
That's great, looking forward to seeing your work!  O0

If you need help with datting, naming or beta testing your dat, drop me a note.
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Errors & Contributions / Re: Texas Instruments Firmware Dumps
« Last post by jlachniet on September 04, 2018, 11:59:41 AM »
I can do my best to start creating a DAT and naming everything. Although some of the ROMs were my own dumps, I'll upload them so that MIA files aren't an issue.
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