Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com (10/06/89)
I thought people interested in CD-ROMs would appreciate knowing that there
is a catalog out which lists hundreds of CD-ROM products. It's called:
CD-ROMS IN PRINT 1988-1989 An International Guide
Compiled by Jean-Paul Emard
The best place to find it would probably be a local library or university
library, in the Reference section. I don't know what it retails for.
Subject areas include Agriculture, architecture, bibliographies and
indexes, business and finance, computers, directories, education, encyclo-
pedias, engineering, fine arts, general interest, law, history, govern-
ment, to name just a few. That's the good news.
Now the bad news. I thumbed through page after page of the directory
looking for ones compatible with the Amiga (sans bridge card or A-Max).
What I found, page after page, was IBM compatibility. A very few were
available for minicomputers and the Mac. I didn't read every single page,
but the impression I got was that out of perhaps 300 listings, something
in the order of 250 of them (maybe more) are colored blue. So why is the
revolutionary Amiga lagging so very far behind??? I'm dying to get my
hands on CD-ROM. Should Amiga users be writing to the CD-ROM manufacturers
asking when Amiga products will be ready? Give 'em a push? Anyone
interested? If so, I'll gladly compile and post some of the companies.
J. Petersenfgd3@jc3b21.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe) (10/08/89)
From article <22817@cup.portal.com>, by Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com:
[Discussion of CD-ROMS in Print and how most of them are IBM compatible
deleted.]
I'm not vary familiar with CD-ROMS. Does the fact they are
IBM-compatible mean their data adheres to the MS-DOS format? If so, does
that mean the data on the CD-ROMS could be accessed on an Amiga with an
MS-DOS file system mounted? Granted programs on the CD wouldn't be of any
use, but it might be a lot easier for a publisher to port a text searching
program to the Amiga format than to port all his data. The program could
be distributed on an AmigaDOS floppy. If something like Cross-DOS could
read IBM-compatible CD-ROMS on the Amiga it would make a lot of machine
readable data available to us.
Given the vast amount of data stored in MS-DOS format wouldn't it be a
big advantage if the Amiga could read it painlessly? Wouldn't the ability
to read MS-DOS data be a nice feature to have built in to the operating
system?
--Fabbian Dufoe
350 Ling-A-Mor Terrace South
St. Petersburg, Florida 33705
813-823-2350
UUCP: ...uunet!pdn!jc3b21!fgd3don@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Donald R Lloyd) (10/08/89)
Has anybody seen the latest issue of Amigaworld, the BriWall ad? They're selling a 650(?) meg optical drive for the amiga! Not exactly CD-rom, but definately a nice thing to have..... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- Don Lloyd El Campeador don@vax1.acs.udel.edu | | |Gibberish is | DISCLAIMER: don@pyr1.acs.udel.edu | | |spoken here. | My employers are idiots. They wouldn't understand | | --------------- my babbling even if they WERE literate enough to read it. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. LaPasha) (10/09/89)
I've heard that Comspec is working on a CD-ROM device driver, using their own SCSI adapter, for the Amiga. I don't know the status, price, or any more info on what they've got, but they'd be some folks to ask. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=- Robin LaPasha |Deep-Six your ruslan@ecsvax.uncecs.edu |files with VI! ;^) ;^) ;^)
tdesjardins@spurge.waterloo.edu (Tim Desjardins) (10/09/89)
In article <767@jc3b21.UUCP> fgd3@jc3b21.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe) writes: > I'm not vary familiar with CD-ROMS. Does the fact they are >IBM-compatible mean their data adheres to the MS-DOS format? If so, does >that mean the data on the CD-ROMS could be accessed on an Amiga with an >MS-DOS file system mounted? Granted programs on the CD wouldn't be of any Not unless you have a bridge board with some kind of kludge to make it look like an Amiga device. Secondly CD-ROMS are not in IBM format they are in the ISO 9660 format, generally, which all driver software is to support. What is needed is driver software for the ROM drives themselves that support each manufacturers CD-ROM reader. An extra caveat people like Apple and Microsoft have been publishing machine specific discs, for instance many Apple specific discs contain Hypercard Stacks, and Microsoft has established a superset of the CD-ROM standard ISO 9660 called Microsoft extensions. My memory is a little fuzzy so no flames please and thank you. Discs can be considered as IBM specific if apllications on them are IBM exe files. But pure data should look the same to everybody including the directory structure. ( is the standard ISO 9660? or 960? ? and what colour book is it? ) >--Fabbian Dufoe > 350 Ling-A-Mor Terrace South > St. Petersburg, Florida 33705 > 813-823-2350 > >UUCP: ...uunet!pdn!jc3b21!fgd3 Have a nice day. Tim Desjardins. tdesjardins@spurge.waterloo.{edu|cdn}