+retroclouds Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 (edited) I’d like to find out what the allowed characters are in filenames on the TI-99/4a, and also which ones are the most commonly use. In particular I’m thinking mostly of DV80 files like source code in assembly language, C code, etc. I’ve seen following: FILE<0..9, A..Z> FILE<0..9, A..Z>;<extension> Examples: FILE1 FILE2 FILE3 FILE4 .... FILE1;S FILE2;S FILE3;S FILE4;S ... FILE1;OBJ, FILE2:C Reason I’m asking is because of my Stevie editor I’m working on. I have a routine that allows you to increase/decrease file names with a single keypress, e.g. FILE1;C to FILE2;C That way you can quickly browse through files. What are the most common extensions? Are they supported on all storage devices (TIPI, HDR, nanopeb, ...) ? Edited July 25, 2020 by retroclouds Spelling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F.G. Kaal Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 All characters are allowed except a '.' (dot) and spaces in a TI directory or file name. The '.' character is the device - directory - file name separator. In the beginning ( before 1990 ) I used NAME;SRC NAME;OBJ NAME;LST (sometimes also NAME;TIB and NAME;EXB) but AFAIK there is not really a convention about file extensions. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 I used semicolons and commas in early times, but I later switched to underscore, probably because of the Geneve tools. MYFILE_S (assembly source code) MYFILE_C (C source code) MYFILE_O (tagged object code, also _X) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted July 25, 2020 Author Share Posted July 25, 2020 Thanks for the replies. So it seems the delimiter character that prefixes a file suffix could be anything (except a “.” dot) For me, the most naturals ones seems to be: ; _ / Actually I like the semicolon as a delimiter (at least for C files and assembly files). Also like to keep file extension short. Why waste multiple chars if a single char does nicely, leaves more room for the filename ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 I always disliked the semicolon, I used forward slash. But since that doesn't work on the PC file system, when I started Classic99 I switched to underscore. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 I typically forgo the slash, underscore, etc. given the 10 character limit, and pretty much use a single letter to denote the file type. For example FILES - source files (could be FILE1S FILE2S for multiple in a segment) FILEO - object file FILEL - link file (for make) FILE - the program image output There are file 'extensions' such as for TI Artist (_P, _C, _M, _I) and GR graphics (/GR , iirc) etc that are fairly well defined and helpful when browsing. When Ernie and Marc and I were working on the SID software we chose the dollar sign to filter files. I know there are other types I am forgetting. On the TI, I periodically 'revert' to using /S and /O, mostly because Funnelweb defaults to it and that's the environment I prefer on the TI system. That said, the Geneve reserves the slash for parameters which makes command line parsing a miserable affair, so if I think I'll use the files in both systems I stick with my earlier file typing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jedimatt42 Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 TIPI uses the rule, that '.' in a file name is presented as '/' to the TI. And TI '/' and '\' characters in names become '.' on the hosted linux filesystem. The other characters mentioned should function without transformations. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kchula-Rrit Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 For what it's worth, I use these conventions with my files. FILE;C C99 source file. FILE;H C99 Header or include file. FILE;S Assembly source file. FILE;I Included assembly file, using the Ed/Assem COPY directive. FILE;L Assembly listing file. FILE;M Makefile, loaded with Tom Bentley's CLOAD or my KLOAD programs. FILE;O Tagged object file, to be used with CLOAD or KLOAD. FILE Text or executable file. The ten-character limit requires that my file names have max eight characters, which works nicely when I transfer files with Procomm to my Win98 system. Now, trying to fit meaningful labels into six characters in my assembly programs sometimes gets weird... K-R. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kl99 Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 the TI-990 is using "/" as Seperator for the File Extension in its CATALOG programs. With the option of not having a File Extension as well. examples: TXLIB/OBJ TXLINK/SYS TXLOBJ/LIB WUMPUS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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