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Atari 8 bit file extensions


npturton

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Yes. I needed to call them something and they just seemed logical and didn't conflict with anything else that I know of. If I come across something better or some possible standard I will change them. :)

 

They sound fine; I just wanted to clarify a little.

 

Actually, even some of the "standards" use questionable naming schemes in my opinion. For instance, we use BAS for tokenized BASIC files and ENT or LST for ATASCII BASIC files. But then ENT and LST extensions are used for other languages too. It makes sense from the standpoint that ENT and LST files are assumed to be text files, no matter what language they're in. But if you find some of these files alone, they may need to be examined before it's known what kind of files they actually are. Also, many times, people will just use BAS for text files too, which just invites confusion.

 

It makes more sense to me that even the text files that have been created for a particular language have their own unique extension to distinguish them from other languages. The difficult part is that it's hard to change standards, and then you have all the existing files that already don't adhere. I actually decided to create my own extensions for TBXL because of the reasons I pointed out, and because I wanted to make the extensions a little more consistent within the language itself. Here's what I came up with, and have been using for about 10 years now:

 

ATB = ATASCII Turbo BASIC

TTB = Tokenized Turbo BASIC

CTB = Compiled Turbo BASIC (Already Standard)

 

I got the idea from the CTB extension, which made total sense to me, and seemed logical to apply conceptually to the other file types for the language. I don't program enough in Atari BASIC any more to really care what's used there. But I think similar naming conventions could be used to make things more clear for it, and other languages too.

Edited by MrFish
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There really is no standard. Offhand, I can't think of any Atari program that really requires a file to end in a particular extension. The "need" for specific file extensions comes from the DOS world which caused XEX to appear, because COM and EXE are recognized by DOS as supposed DOS programs.

 

There are a number of extensions everyone just agrees on, so anyone familiar can tell what kind of graphics picture is in a file, files intended for certain programs, such as word processors, or spreadsheets, etc. But, you can do whatever makes sense to you. For programming work i use....

 

BAS = Tokenized Atari Basic

LST = Listed Atari Basic

TST = Listed Atari Basic to Host device H6 and directly editable by Windows Notepad.

BXL = Tokenized OSS Basic XL

LXL = Listed OSS Basic XL

TXL = OSS Basic XL to Host device H6 and directly editable by Windows Notepad.

M65 = Mac/65 saved source

L65 = Mac/65 listed source

T65 = Mac/65 listed source to Host device H6 and directly editable by Windows Notepad.

ASM = Mac/65 assembly output listing.

XRF = Mac/65 cross reference output.

TRF = Mac/65 cross reference output to Host device H6 and directly viewable by Windows Notepad.

OBJ = memory object with load address, but without run address from compiling/assembling source

BIN = generic memory object without load or run addresses.

FON FNT = memory object (same as BIN) containing data for an Atari font.

EXE XEX PRG COM blah blah blah. = memory object with load and run addresses -- aka Atari executable program.

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Standardised use of COM and EXE makes sense under SpartaDOS X, especially if one wishes to use the COMEXE driver, which differentiates between the two file extenders and automatically and transparently disables the cartridge ROM when loading an EXE file (which is assumed to be one which requires RAM under the cartridge space).

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There really is no standard. Offhand, I can't think of any Atari program that really requires a file to end in a particular extension. The "need" for specific file extensions comes from the DOS world which caused XEX to appear, because COM and EXE are recognized by DOS as supposed DOS programs.

 

There are a number of extensions everyone just agrees on, so anyone familiar can tell what kind of graphics picture is in a file, files intended for certain programs, such as word processors, or spreadsheets, etc. But, you can do whatever makes sense to you.

 

I used the term "standard" partly in jest just for that reason. They're loose standards. But there are many commonly used extensions, and that's what I'm referring too. There are at least some various Windows based programs that "care" what you use for Atari extensions though: Graph2Font, Atari Fontmaker, ATADIM, ASAP, FAIL, etc. I never really cared too much what anyone else used, and I always used what I wanted. But it's become a subject matter to a certain extent for me because the GUI I'm working on will be assigning icons based on extensions. So compiling commonly used extensions and the filetypes associated with them, and creating icons is part of my job. Of course even there, as in Windows, the user should have some control over what extensions they use and how they're recognized. I think Jon and I have agreed on that, or maybe it's just an assumption I've made. What say ye Jon?

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I'm all for flexibility (and thus the ability to change things if one really wants to), but I'm also for sensible defaults, which imply at least the suggestion of standardisation. If the icon editor's file selector, for example, lists *.ICO files by default, I think it's overkill to permit the user to override the default icon file extension. Similarly, a text editor might reasonably assume *.TXT unless the user chooses "*.*". If the user wants to call his plain text files .BAS files, I'd say more fool him. :) Of course, as far as icon associations are concerned, we're just talking about a list of extensions and some corresponding icon IDs, so the user could edit these as they wish. But I don't think it's a big deal to have some hard-coded defaults, and it's reasonable for a system (especially a small one with limited resources) to make some general assumptions about what certain file extensions might reasonably denote. If the GUI user isn't happy with the required extension for executable files, for example, then he's obviously short of things to worry about. :)

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But, you can do whatever makes sense to you. I use....

 

BAS = Tokenized Atari Basic

LST = Listed Atari Basic

TST = Listed Atari Basic to Host device H6 and directly editable by Windows Notepad.

BXL = Tokenized OSS Basic XL

LXL = Listed OSS Basic XL

TXL = OSS Basic XL to Host device H6 and directly editable by Windows Notepad.

M65 = Mac/65 saved source

L65 = Mac/65 listed source

T65 = Mac/65 listed source to Host device H6 and directly editable by Windows Notepad.

ASM = Mac/65 assembly output listing.

XRF = Mac/65 cross reference output.

TRF = Mac/65 cross reference output to Host device H6 and directly viewable by Windows Notepad.

OBJ = memory object with load address, but without run address from compiling/assembling source

BIN = generic memory object without load or run addresses.

FON FNT = memory object (same as BIN) containing data for an Atari font.

EXE XEX PRG COM blah blah blah. = memory object with load and run addresses -- aka Atari executable program.

 

Yeah, it makes sense to have a seperate file extension for ASCII files, as opposed to ATASCII files. I actually use the one I have listed above as ATASCII for ASCII, since I don't use ATASCII for anything in the language currently. Auto line-feed translation with emulators makes ATASCII unnecessary if you're doing 100% cross development, at least in my case.

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Yes. I needed to call them something and they just seemed logical and didn't conflict with anything else that I know of. If I come across something better or some possible standard I will change them. :)

 

Allan

 

Ah, I mis-understood. I thought these were "de jure" extensions based on the application.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 years later...

Copying my post from a recently started discussion on this subject in the programming forum...

 

I just found out, while rediscovering one of Ken Sider's old sites, that Jindroush has a page of file extensions with descriptions for a number of the extensions. I'd never seen it before, for always focussing on the cartridge information at his site.

 

Atari File Formats

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