DOS / PC dat file

[hargle]

hey all,

this is a bit experimental, but figured someone here might be interested in helping to work on it with me.

http://nugnugnug.com/MobyNames/Mobygame ... ver001.zip

The above is a romcenter DAT file for DOS games. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be any other form of dat file for PC games. It's a huge project, and there are plenty of issues involved, but this is a start.

This file contains information on just over a thousand games, using a file naming standard based off of the information from mobygames.com.
So top level zip files get renamed to look like this:

A-10 Tank Killer (1992)(Dynamix, Inc.) [Simulation].zip
Lost Admiral, The (1991)(Quantum Quality Productions) [Strategy].zip
Pole Position II (1988)(Mindscape, Inc.) [Racing - Driving].zip

Because there are lots of variations among DOS games (you might have an original disk, I might have a cracked, intro'ed copy) I removed all .exe and .com files from the dat file because those would be the most obvious places for differences to be. Instead, I try to key off of other files that are less likely to be modified by cracking groups.

The idea behind this is that we get a few people to scan their files with this .dat file, get the top level zip filename the same, THEN go about comparing files inside the zip, until we can settle on what a [!] file should be.

This is a renaming DAT file ONLY!! If you use this, you ABSOLUTELY MUST go into romcenter's preferences and in the 'fix'tab, be sure to only have "rename sets" checked, otherwise you will absolutely regret ever using this, as romcenter will delete any file that not in my DAT file, which is all the .exe and .com files!!!


anyway, if there is interest in this, I'll discuss more about the project and how I got my files named the way they are, and hopefully others will want to join in. I think it's about time the PC finally got some renaming love.

[hargle]

Well, not sure if anyone particularly cares about this project beyond me, but I've now started on some other stuff-a master list of all known DOS games 1981-1999.
It's going to be a work in progress for the next century or so, but it's a start:

http://pc.nugnugnug.com/master

With a list in hand, we'll at least know what to start collecting, and from there, move onto building better .dat files.

Currently reigning in at 10,000 titles.

Help is welcome and appreciated-contact info on the website.

[Wanderer]

Wow. All i can say is good luck. It is indeed a difficult task. You might want to take a look at the TOSEC site though. Their TIM seems to have some IBM\PC Compatible entries in the database. Somebody put them there so maybe someone is still interested in maintaining such a list.

[RomCenter]

About the com and exe, it should be possible to record them in the datafile without checksun. Romcenter 3 should keep them in the zip, even during a fix.

Also, you can use a 'mame' style xml format to store files infos. It is possible to create a new tag for game style (arcade, simulation etc...).
I can use these tags to add the game style in a separate column in romcenter. This will also allow style sorting.

Some games uses directories and several disks. You can include that info in the file name.
ex:
name DISK1/AMBROSIA.ULT size 4648 crc a100075e
name DISK1/ANIMATE.DAT size 5888 crc 81f68e76 md
name DISK1/BLANK.IBM size 16384 crc 3084507d