ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. LaPasha) (10/28/90)
I have gotten some more information concerning the Xetec CD-ROM drives, so I thought I'd pass it on. There are two rather distinct sources for this info - one, a 10/17 phone call to Xetec, talking with "John" the "Sales Manager" and - two, a return letter dated 10/23 from Dave Nilson the Customer Service Technician. For obvious reasons most of my info is from the latter source. Q - what about the filesystem, how does it get along with AmigaDOS, etc.? A - They wrote a filesystem to the High Sierra/ISO 9660 specs... to Amiga DOS it looks like a standard, but read-only, AmigaDOS partition (i.e. hard disk device but read-only.) The mountlist looks much like that for an FFS partition. (Phone - It's normally called "CD0:", a SCSI device.) It doesn't need a DiskChange command sent when changing CDs; the filesystem handles that stuff. (Phone - Some SCSI controllers don't handle "SCSI command 28" well, and the drive needs this. Just in case you're worried about whether _your_ SCSI controller can get along with the SCSI the drive wants, the Xetec bbs supposedly has a "test your SCSI" program online that'll let you know whether the drive would be happy. [The bbs is (913)827-1974.] The 2091 _should_ work...) Q - Compatibility - OSes, CDTV? A - The system and drivers are compatible with 1.3 and 2.0. (Phone - compatibility with 2.0 is working, sort of, but could perhaps stand some tweaking - some comment about "overlapping windows"...'Course, it could be the sales manager that needs tweaking. ;^)) They haven't had a chance to test compatibility with CDTV, but they plan on maintaining compatibility. They support the mixed Audio and CD-ROM formats, but they DON'T currently support the CDTV's CD+G format. Q - Audio? A - They provide an "Audio CD device" for accessing standard audio CDs. You apparently can't (musn't?) access the CD audio data directly since "all drives are prohibited from doing this due to copyright laws." But... - there's a "CD Audio program" for "accessing" CD audio from the drive (Phone - it's like a player, with screen representations of a normal CD player's buttons.) - "We also provide commands that access the data from CD audio disks directly from a programming level, via a device." I'm not sure why they're fudging around here. It could be that if it's perceived as a "sample data off CDs" box - the computer equivalent of needle-dropping - then the music lobby would break down their doors with lawsuits. The "device" could also just a CD audio equivalent of AmigaVision's videodisc player, where you can pre-set start and stop "frames", like by time tracking, and then send a command to play that audio segment when the user gets to X point in your program... That would be nice to have. Does anybody who better understands CD audio and computer interfaces for them have comments on what Xetec might mean? Q - Accessing data from current CD-ROMs? A - You need to develop an Amiga software "engine." (Translation - you need to build your own info retrieval software.) The Xetec folks are looking into doing a few of these. (Phone - text data can be accessed fine. [He wanted to be sure that I knew - ahem - that I couldn't run the Mac or PC retrieval software/binaries, that might be on the CD ROMs, directly.] Image files, of course, would need conversion to an IFF format from whatever they are stored in on the CD-ROM, but are apparently not a problem in and of themselves either.) Q - Hardware gory details? A - Drive is made by Chinon. It follows the Sony/Philips CD ROM drive standards, and is CD Red Book and Yellow Book compatible. Power supply in the external unit... has an AC wall adapter. So, as long as you get some other wall adapter that can feed the unit "14 VAC/20 VA" you can use the drive elsewhere in the world. No fan, doesn't need it anyway (this is probably a _good_thing_ considering the dust problems other optical-type drives have had.) One year warrantee, from date of purchase, to original purchaser. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Details to save future bandwidth, from the October 90 AmigaWorld ad: Internal drive is called the CDx650i, US $599.00, for 2000/3000. External model is the CDx650e, US $699.00, for all models (assuming the SCSI, of course.) Phone numbers - Info (913)827-0685, orders (800)445-0611, fax (913)827-6023, bbs (913)827-1974. Land address - Xetec, 2804 Arnold Road, Salina KS 67401 (...no I don't know of any net addresses for them.) Disclaimer - don't have the drive, have never bought anything from them, don't work for them... you get the idea. -- Robin LaPasha |Keeper of the Amiga ruslan@ecsvax.uncecs.edu |Hypermedia Mailing List
mk59200@assari.tut.fi (Markku Kolkka) (10/29/90)
In article <1990Oct28.043628.23763@uncecs.edu> ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. LaPasha) writes: >I have gotten some more information concerning the Xetec CD-ROM drives, >so I thought I'd pass it on. > >You apparently can't (musn't?) access the CD audio data directly since >"all drives are prohibited from doing this due to copyright laws." But... It's not Xetec's fault, the CD-ROM standard apparently prohibits accessing sound tracks as data. At least the SCSI command set for CD-ROMs definetly disallows reading audio data, and if the drive refuses to give you the audio data, you can't do much about that. -- Markku Kolkka mk59200@tut.fi
zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) (10/29/90)
In article <1990Oct28.043628.23763@uncecs.edu> ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. LaPasha) writes: > >I have gotten some more information concerning the Xetec CD-ROM drives, >so I thought I'd pass it on. > ... >Internal drive is called the CDx650i, US $599.00, for 2000/3000. I don't get this. The 3000 has two internal drive bays, but both are for 3 1/2" half-height drives. CD's are 5 1/4" disks. How does this work? Dan Zerkle zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (916) 754-0240 Amiga... Because life is too short for boring computers.
nad@tegra.COM (Nancy Durgin) (10/29/90)
In article <7880@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) writes: >In article <1990Oct28.043628.23763@uncecs.edu> ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. LaPasha) writes: >> >>I have gotten some more information concerning the Xetec CD-ROM drives, >>so I thought I'd pass it on. >> ... >>Internal drive is called the CDx650i, US $599.00, for 2000/3000. > >I don't get this. The 3000 has two internal drive bays, but both are >for 3 1/2" half-height drives. CD's are 5 1/4" disks. How does this >work? > It *doesn't* work... The early ads stated that the CDx650i would fit in the 3000, and the later ones corrected this, and just said it would fit in the 2000/2500. I've also called Xetec and gotten this story from them. Nancy -- ============================================================================== Nancy Durgin | (Usual disclaimers | Tegra-Varityper, Inc. tegra!nad@uunet.com | apply...) | Billerica, Massachusetts ==============================================================================
joseph@valnet.UUCP (Joseph P. Hillenburg) (10/30/90)
zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) writes: > In article <1990Oct28.043628.23763@uncecs.edu> ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. La > > > >I have gotten some more information concerning the Xetec CD-ROM drives, > >so I thought I'd pass it on. > > ... > >Internal drive is called the CDx650i, US $599.00, for 2000/3000. > > I don't get this. The 3000 has two internal drive bays, but both are > for 3 1/2" half-height drives. CD's are 5 1/4" disks. How does this > work? > The internal drive ONLY works on A2x00 machine@! (Hopefully it'll fit in the rumored tower amiga though.) I suppose, with enough torment you oculd fit a CDi drive in an A3000, but I'd stick wiith the CDx for that. > Dan Zerkle zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (916) 754-0240 > Amiga... Because life is too short for boring computers. -Joseph Hillenburg UUCP: ...iuvax!valnet!joseph ARPA: valnet!joseph@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu INET: joseph@valnet.UUCP