Author Topic: System list modification for oric computers  (Read 3681 times)

Offline dvallet

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System list modification for oric computers
« on: February 19, 2015, 05:54:45 AM »
Oric computer family aren't always compatible and some software are dedicated to one of them.

So i ask to add it ; looking at the definitions, i suggest  :
(Oric1)
(Atmos)
(Telestrat)

or
(Oric-1)
(Oric-Atmos)
(Oric-Telestrat)

I prefer the first one because name are shorter.


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Offline PandMonium

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Re: System list modification for oric computers
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2015, 05:47:39 PM »
I have some questions and you might be able to help me sorting those systems.

Usually TOSEC dats follow this pattern:

<Company Name> <System Name> - <Category1> - <CategoryN> (TOSEC-v<YYYY-MM-DD>_CM).dat
example: Commodore Amiga - Games - Public Domain - [ADF] (TOSEC-v2014-10-24_CM).dat


In this case, from my brief look at the wikipedia and old-computers it seems Oric (fullname = Oric Products International Ltd) was formed by Tangerine "to develop and release the Oric-1 in 1983".

Given that, is the correct company name "Oric"? And its systems might be "Oric-1", "Oric1" or just "1", as well as "Atmos" and "Telestrat"?
Resulting in dats such as:
"Oric Oric-1 - Games (TOSEC-v2014-10-24_CM).dat"
"Oric 1 - Games (TOSEC-v2014-10-24_CM).dat"
"Oric Atmos - Games (TOSEC-v2014-10-24_CM).dat"
"Oric Telestrat - Games (TOSEC-v2014-10-24_CM).dat"

Things is not a exact rule, sometimes there is not a single company or system name (clones, equivalent hardware and so on). Here is the list of our current systems used in dats.
Nowadays we even have a "Tangerine Oric-1 & Oric Atmos". From this I assume that software from Oric-1 and Oric Atmos is the same and thus they merged both (and used Tangerine as the company but i think this was not always used).

What's your opinion about this and how can we improve it? :)

Offline dvallet

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Re: System list modification for oric computers
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2015, 08:28:11 PM »
Hi, i agree on this point :
Oric has been built by Tangerine but the main name used was ORIC all along the life of this computer. So the list can be named
"Oric - Games - [TAP] (TOSEC-v2015-01-01_CM)"
"Tangerine Oric - Games - [TAP] (TOSEC-v2015-01-01_CM)",
it doesn't matter a lot. Oric is just more known than Tangerine by users (and the dat name is shorter).

But the computers of this brand are like others computers families : they are compatible but they have some little differences.
So sometimes software is compatible between atmos and oric 1 models, sometimes not and software have in this case, been published in 2 versions. For this reason, it's not a good idea to separate dat for oric 1 and dat for atmos.
It's quite the same for telestrat/stratos.

You can compare oric computer family : oric 1, atmos, telestrat to amiga family : 500,500+,600, 1200 or atari ST, ste !
That's the reason that make me purpose some system flags like the other ones.

(Oric-1) or (Oric1) : I don't care, as you want
« Last Edit: February 22, 2015, 08:29:53 PM by dvallet »
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Offline PandMonium

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Re: System list modification for oric computers
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2015, 04:40:07 PM »
I'm not against (or in favor) of separating the dats. You're free to do that if it makes sense, obviously. It already happens to other systems. If the software is compatible, since the dumps will be exactly the same there is little logic in having two dats with duplicated roms (IMHO). Is just a question of good organization.

As for the Oric company / system issue. It gets a bit more complex.

We use a fixed datnaming scheme (explained before: company system - ...). This represents the folders organization of each collection. So, Commodore Amiga - Games and Commodore C64 - Demos will end up in folders such as:
Commodore\Amiga\Games
Commodore\C64\Demos

The second level folders are always the system names, with the first being companies. If we use Oric - Games it will break that. Furthermore, it can get worse if the same Company has other systems and days, such as Oric Telestrat & Stratos - Applications. This would mix systems and collections all in the same folder:
Oric\Games
Oric\Telestat\Games
Oric\Applications
(...)

That's one of the reasons why company and system names are kind of mandatory. Of course this may create ugly solutions. I recall having some dats with repeated words, such as "Oric Oric-1 - Games" (made up example) or "MSX MSX...".
As for Tangerine vs Oric, I don't have any opinion on that. Maybe it was used due to this, maybe because the correct company was Tangerine (although wikipedia says Tangerine created a company named Oric (...) to produce Oric-1), it can be something yet to be fixed and so on. :)

Maybe Cassiel and other members can also give us some opinions on this.