Re: [openMSX-devel] machines

[Maarten t. H. <ma...@tr...>]

On Monday 23 June 2003 00:30, Manuel Bilderbeek wrote:

> Several things about the share dir:
> 1) we all agreed (on IRC) that it would be better to have the ROM files
> of a machine or extension in a seperate directory roms. This has already
> been done for some machines and most extensions. But it is not done
> everywhere yet. Please donate some minutes and make the necessary
> changes to the hardwareconfig.xml file of the machines that are not
> 'converted' yet. If we all do a part, it will be ready fast.

I think it is a better idea to script this. There will be more changes to the 
XML format, so it's worth investigating how to make changes automatically. 
I'll look into it tomorrow.

> 2) What do we do with machines of the same type, but different country
> vresions? Example: Sony HB-F700D and HB-F700P (German and international
> version, respectively). The ROMs differ (keyboard matrix, e.g.)... Do we
> add both versions?

I think so. One user may prefer the German version and another user may prefer 
the international version.

> 3) ISn't the share directory getting too large? It would be nice if the
> machine and extension configs could be put in a seperate CVS module; we
> could even release the sets separately from openMSX itself.
> ("Machine-pack"). What do you think?

In the future, this would be a good idea. However, currently there are still 
regularly changes in the XML format, so machine packs would be limited to 
specific openMSX versions, in which case it makes more sense to distribute 
them together (what we are currently doing).

I also think it makes more sense to make a machine pack per machine. The 
package would contain the hardwareconfig.xml, other info (pictures of the 
real machine) and ROM files. We could put everything except the ROM files in 
CVS, so people can easily create their own machine packs.

Bye,
		Maarten