The Old School Emulation Center (TOSEC) was a website and retrocomputing initiative founded in February 2000 by a person who used the pseudonym "Grendel". The virtual team of contributors to the project provided quality assurance tools and guidelines for cataloging and validating ROM images and disk images. TOSEC's own cataloging efforts primarily focused on abandonware, public domain software, and anachronistic electronic media for microcomputers, minicomputers, and video game consoles.
TOSEC cataloged computer software, firmware, e-books, user guides, and disk magazines from sundry varieties of optical disc, floppy disk, magnetic tape, and other media. The TOSEC databases contain metadata for the software and/or firmware of more than 180 computing platforms. In 2001, the project had more than 40 volunteers.
TOSEC's principal works included:
- The TOSEC Naming Convention v2009-12-24[1], a document which defines a filename scheme for systematically describing and collating disk and ROM images.
- Databases cataloging software and BIOS firmware for various video game consoles, microcomputers, and minicomputers. TOSEC distributed the databases as data files consumable by ROM image validation tools, such as RomCenter. By referencing the metadata in the databases, a person or computer program can identify files containing imaged media, and evaluate their data integrity. TOSEC's most recently-published catalog update is dated December 27, 2009.
- TOSEC Information Manager (TIM), a freeware utility software program for Microsoft Windows, used for validating a collection of imaged media against a TOSEC database. TIM compares generated checksums to recorded checksums in the database, and renames the user's matching files according to the TOSEC Naming Convention (TNC).
- alt.binaries.emulators.tosec, a Usenet newsgroup for the proliferation of imaged firmware and secondary storage media. On 1 November, 2000, in the charter and proposal for the group's creation, TOSEC founder "Grendel" described the purpose he intended for TOSEC and its newsgroup.[2]
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[edit] References
- Carless, Simon (2004). Gaming Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools. Sebastopol, California: O'Reilly Media. pp. 46–49. ISBN 9780596007140. http://books.google.com/books?id=zrqz84QUuSEC&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 21 March, 2009.
- TOSECdev.org, the official TOSEC website. Retrieved on 24 December, 2009.
- TOSEC.org, the (old) official TOSEC website, currently redirects to tosecdev.org. Retrieved on 21 March, 2009.
- TOSEC Naming Convention, hypertext version of the latest TNC, hosted by TOSECdev.org TOSEC Project Homepage. Retrieved on 24 December, 2009.
- TOSEC Naming Convention, an (outdated) hypertext version of the TNC, hosted by the toseciso.org CD Dumping Project. Retrieved on 21 March, 2009.
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