[Coco] Delphi Archive lists, etc.

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel Ewy" <jcewy at swbell.net>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 9:06 PM
Subject: [Coco] Delphi Archive lists, etc.

> So I've been poking around my CoCo and MM/1 disks, trying to find some
> of the things I had done in the
> past, with mixed success. I came across
> some files I've saved on my file server (in its various incarnations)
> for years. The date on them is 9/3/1996. They have lists of files from
> various sections of the CoCo and OS-9 Delphi SIG.

I also have many lists. I put them into a database.

> I don't remember
> exactly when the Delphi file archives went away, but ISTR that I
> compiled these lists because I thought (perhaps it had been announced)
> the archives wouldn't be around much longer. I think my idea was to try
> to preserve as many of the files as possible. I didn't accomplish this,
> but I did make lists of files.

I also have many files as others also must have.

> I see my pix2tga and vef2tga utilities for the CoCo (the source for
> which I have dug up), but I see no mention of my cliplib-enabled
> jpegshow for the MM/1. In fact, I don't see a listing for any version
> of jpegshow except 2.0. Kotanski's version 3.0 was around by the time I
> made my list though, so this (and maybe my modified
> version) might have
> been put up elsewhere, and not on Delphi at all.

OK, I will not look at my Delphi files. I will check CIS.

> I've put these files on the wiki at coco25.com in the hopes that they
> will be of interest to others, for the purpose of research, nostalgia,
> or whatever. But I put them on the wiki so that they can be edited and
> added to as necessary

Not a good plan, that would mean manual editing and forgo many methods of
comparing, checking and merging that can be done much better with
tools.

>(e.g., I didn't get anything out of the RS-DOS
> sections, maybe someone can fill that in...) and also annotated with
> information about which of these files exist on RTSI.com. Perhaps those
> of us who have some of these files from Delphi, or Compuserve, or lucy,
> (or wuarchive?) might see whether we can preserve them on RTSI.com
> before they flake off our disks with the oxide.
>
> JCE

RTSI has outlived its usefulness a long time ago IMHO.

With many thanks to our RTSI host, but we need a Web Master to accept the
need to host our files on another site that we can reorganize, enhance and
make the file set really useful for all that are interested.

The Web Master must be willing to accept the files explicitly, not just
ignore that some files have been uploaded that might be questionable.

I thought about reorganizing the RTSI files but I did not because I would
have to be honest and tell the Web Master what really was on his site.

I am, and have been willing for quite some time, to do the database work
involved and generate the HTML pages for the new CoCo file site
automatically.

See http://www.thedbcommunity.com/ for the latest version of a site that was
generated (in the past for sure, I have not checked lately) using this
method. It is the home page for the database program that I would use.

I will NOT look into files to see what they are but will incorporate others
work into the database used to generate the site.

File comparison can be done by comparing CRC32 values and scripts to
reorganize the files generated by the database program programming which I
would do.

Dividing the work up would make this possible but I continue to have
questions about if it is worth the effort. I.E., would it be used?

Stephen H. Fischer