C64 downloads site (and converter script) updated

My "large archives" c64 downloads site has been updated. At least some of the most important archives on it. That adds 10 years of new updates of The Digital Dungeon or HVSC SID collection. Please find the files here:

C64 XLFiles

And most notably, there is my "ai64_extractor", that I use to extract C64 stuff from FTP sites to make them available for download. It has reached a public repository on GitHub, so that you can create your own archives, without waiting for me to publish new versions of this tool.

ai64_extractor on GitHub

Please read on for more info on these two updates.

Updates on C64 downloads

The updated archives, marked with 2021 date, have been created with the updated ai64_extractor, thus the file names in them are up-to-date with current IDEDOS (0.91 beta) and FUSECFS (2.0.4).

As you can also see on the site, there are two archive types. One with "dot .PRG" (and dot .D64) extension, for use with C64 Emulators, 1541 Ultimate, SD card readers or USB/ETH PCLink. The other is with "comma ,PRG" (and comma ,D64) extension, for copying to your IDE64 devices with FuseCFS. File names are limited to 16 characters, plus 3 characters for extension - thus limits of IDE64.

All files are extracted from ZIP, RAR and C64 specific archives like LNX, ZipCode, and are just plain PRG for single file programs, and D64 for disks.

Please note that I'm testing these only on IDE64 with FuseCFS - so any other test reports are welcomed.

Download the stuff on c64.rulez.org

Updates on ai64_extractor

There has not been a public release for many years, so main updates are compatibility upgrade to current PHP versions, current IDEDOS and FuseCFS.

Feature upgrades include: some more PC-only formats are skipped. Also file extensions that would report error when copied with FuseCFS. Improvements to natural sort of files. Implementation of super-verbose logging (helps to identify where certain result files came from). Fixes to Unicode character support in file names.

Added -n flag to control number of output files per directory, -t to control temp dir, and -e to control error handling. These have been "hardcoded settings" in the script before.

And main highlight is of course the code available in public git repository:

ai64_extractor on Gitub.

More info in my original article about ai64_extractor and original article about the XLFiles C64 download site.