Retrode Forum

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: nitro322 on 26/Mar/2012 06:52:00 AM

Title: ROM timestamps
Post by: nitro322 on 26/Mar/2012 06:52:00 AM
What's the significance of 1990-11-20 23:00?  All files presented through my Retrode 2 have this timestamp.  At first I thought this was the time when the ROM was compiled or something, but all ROMs have this same timestamp.  So, where does it come from?

Related, would it be possible to get the original timestamp of the ROM and/or SRAM through the Retrode?  That'd be a nice touch.
Title: Re: ROM timestamps
Post by: emuDrache on 26/Mar/2012 09:25:37 AM
The Retrode fakes a filesystem. It is probably just a hardcoded date in the firmware.

I am not sure how many supported systems actually have a date in the header.

A quick check of the SNES header shows no date/time field.
Title: Re: ROM timestamps
Post by: nitro322 on 27/Mar/2012 01:30:08 AM
So, no particular significance, then?  In that case, could that hardcoded date be removed in a future update?  It seems super arbitrary, and if there's significance or reason to have a timestamp in the past like that, I think it'd make more sense, and be less confusing for the more detail oriented amongst us (that sounds much better than obsessive-compulsive :-) ), than using some arbitrary hardcoded date.

Granted, it's not a big deal, but if there's no need then why bother setting that?
Title: Re: ROM timestamps
Post by: emuDrache on 27/Mar/2012 06:46:24 AM
*shrug* it probably has to show *something* otherwise it defaults to something else. i would guess. not sure.

Title: Re: ROM timestamps
Post by: Matthias_H on 27/Mar/2012 03:04:35 PM
Files have dates, can't do anything about it :) Nov 21, 1990 is the Japanese release date of the SFC. I picked this one back in 2009, when the Retrode was called snega2usb and only had a single slot, and history kind of spilled it over to all other files (config, Sega, plug-ins). Any alternative proposals? Please post them in the feature suggestion thread (http://forum.retrode.org/index.php/topic,38.0.html).