I'd just like to bring to light something that has been bothering a lot of us over the years about No-Intro's commendable effort to database the known world of NES and Famicom (legit or unlicensed) cartridges.
We know that they are databased without any form of header often. And they believe that moving forward the NES/Famicom console format should be entirely headerless. It appears that they have put all their eggs into certain communities or emulator authors' unwilling baskets to support this overall effort; if you do something en masse it's up to the world as a whole to adapt to the change.
Since flash carts are becoming the enthusiasts option of choice, we know that a headerless format for the NES/Famicom would be entirely impossible unless processors/fpga-ish devices become faster/smaller/cooler and memory becomes cheaper. With current technology a NES/Famicom flash cart needs headers. Not only to this fact, but a header format takes the burden off emulator coders to database games themselves, keep up-to-date with good/bad dumps, allow dumps to be released without updating their code, allows not having to rely on a databasing community for updates to their database, and frankly allows a life outside of NES development. The NES/Famicom console ROM dump format and emulation could be much more intensive without the simple yet necessary innovation of the iNES header.
No-Intro could in fact be the agent to bring alive the NES 2.0 format or even beta-test the DotFami format. Instead it seems that they want to steer NES/Famicom into the dark.
As quoted by a No-Intro administrator in a thread by someone else attempting to make the effort to fix the NES/Famicom headers:
I mean no disrespect to anyone, but my goal is to hopefully steer them away from this asynchronous step that is just doing more harm than good.
We know that they are databased without any form of header often. And they believe that moving forward the NES/Famicom console format should be entirely headerless. It appears that they have put all their eggs into certain communities or emulator authors' unwilling baskets to support this overall effort; if you do something en masse it's up to the world as a whole to adapt to the change.
Since flash carts are becoming the enthusiasts option of choice, we know that a headerless format for the NES/Famicom would be entirely impossible unless processors/fpga-ish devices become faster/smaller/cooler and memory becomes cheaper. With current technology a NES/Famicom flash cart needs headers. Not only to this fact, but a header format takes the burden off emulator coders to database games themselves, keep up-to-date with good/bad dumps, allow dumps to be released without updating their code, allows not having to rely on a databasing community for updates to their database, and frankly allows a life outside of NES development. The NES/Famicom console ROM dump format and emulation could be much more intensive without the simple yet necessary innovation of the iNES header.
No-Intro could in fact be the agent to bring alive the NES 2.0 format or even beta-test the DotFami format. Instead it seems that they want to steer NES/Famicom into the dark.
As quoted by a No-Intro administrator in a thread by someone else attempting to make the effort to fix the NES/Famicom headers:
BigFred wrote:
I basically agree but the main goal was a completely headerless format. Just datting PRG/CHR and providing an external XML with header info accessible by emulators. I think it can be done with Nestopia or MESS.
I mean no disrespect to anyone, but my goal is to hopefully steer them away from this asynchronous step that is just doing more harm than good.