Incognito SIDE Loader Folder File Limit?

[Tempest]

Is there a limit on the number of files that can be displayed in a folder using the SIDE loader in the FJC Incognito firmware?  It appears that it will only display 250 items.  This seems reasonable (otherwise it takes a long time to scroll through them) but I just wanted to check in case there's an issue with my Incognito.

[Beeblebrox]

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

Is there a limit on the number of files that can be displayed in a folder using the SIDE loader in the FJC Incognito firmware?  It appears that it will only display 250 items.  This seems reasonable (otherwise it takes a long time to scroll through them) but I just wanted to check in case there's an issue with my Incognito.

Correct, see page 8 of the loader quick ref:

https://atari8.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Loader-Quick-Reference.pdf

 

250 limit. 

[Tempest]

54 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

Correct, see page 8 of the loader quick ref:

https://atari8.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Loader-Quick-Reference.pdf

 

250 limit. 

Good to know.  I'll have to slim down my collection it seems.  Oh well, less junk to wade through to find the same 10 games I normally play anyway.

[Beeblebrox]

6 hours ago, Tempest said:

Good to know.  I'll have to slim down my collection it seems.  Oh well, less junk to wade through to find the same 10 games I normally play anyway.

No need to slim down. Just put them in folders and subfolders with no more than files 250 in each. 

Edited March 27 by Beeblebrox

[Tempest]

3 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

No need to slim down. Just put them in folders and subfolders with no more than files 250 in each. 

Yeah I know I can do that, but honestly I really need to go through my files and toss the ones I know I'll never play.  100+ variations of card games?  While they may all be cool to have I doubt I'll ever get around to playing them.  50+ home made pinball construction set tables?  Once again, neat but I'll never play them.  Games not in English?  Well that's no good to me.   Stuff like that.

[flashjazzcat]

It was nice to dispense with the 250 filename limit on the SIDE3 loader, but there was simply no means of doing this on the older hardware (without the cumbersome 'load next 250 files' solution) without loads of extra RAM and fatter code which uses 16-bit indexes and pointers for the directory. The limit on SIDE3 is 1,024 files, and that's largely to simplify the fixed-point math for the scroll bars, the directory itself being able to use up to eight 8K SRAM banks. Those long filenames really eat RAM.

[Tempest]

On 3/27/2024 at 9:25 AM, flashjazzcat said:

It was nice to dispense with the 250 filename limit on the SIDE3 loader, but there was simply no means of doing this on the older hardware (without the cumbersome 'load next 250 files' solution) without loads of extra RAM and fatter code which uses 16-bit indexes and pointers for the directory. The limit on SIDE3 is 1,024 files, and that's largely to simplify the fixed-point math for the scroll bars, the directory itself being able to use up to eight 8K SRAM banks. Those long filenames really eat RAM.

Honestly the directories get cumbersome with hundreds of files in them.  There's really no need for it.

[flashjazzcat]

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

Honestly the directories get cumbersome with hundreds of files in them.  There's really no need for it.

You'd think not, until someone involved with competing hardware starts to make the limitation a wedge issue.

 

In all seriousness, though, my main motivation for raising the limit to 1,024 files on SIDE3 was in order to handle some of the game archives from the Polish FTP sites. Many of them are organised alphabetically in folders, and 500 plus games in one folder is not uncommon. I wanted the loader to be able to deal with that, and the SIDE3 loader is able to load and sort such huge directories in a few seconds. The fact the live search facility favours the current folder before iterating through the rest of the directory tree makes it easy to home in on the file you want even when there are thirty pages of directory entries.