bogaart@lager.serc.nl (Eugene Bogaart) (02/05/91)
Hoi Netlanders, An increasing number of CD-disks are coming across my desk. But the origin sources of these disk differ a lot. Up to now I have at least 3 different Hardware vendors that send me CD-disks now and then. In the process of buying an CD-player I wonder, whether there is any form of compatibility between the CD-players and the data format on disk, because I donot like to buy 3 different (or even more) CD-players for each architecture of computer equipement. Dec has the RRD40 with SCSI interface for serveral machines. Is there any chance that another none DEC SCSI player would work as well. (e.g. Sun Microsystems current CD-player, I believe its number is X559H !) Another question would be: Are the filesystem formats compatible ? (I donot mean the distribution formats because they are always different !) So in general has any body experience with connecting a none DEC CD-player to DEC hardware, or vice versa. Thanks, so far Eugene -- Name: Eugene Bogaart | Software Engineering Research Centre Email: bogaart@serc.nl | Lange Viestraat 365 3511 BK Utrecht Phone: +31 30 32 26 40 | P.box 424 3500 AK Utrecht Fax: +31 30 34 12 49 | The Netherlands --------------------------------------------------------------- Home phone:+31 838051889 | De Wiek 93, 6712 JC Ede
ccloreta@uqvax.cc.uq.oz.au (02/05/91)
> Another question would be: Are the filesystem formats compatible ? > (I donot mean the distribution formats because they are always > different !) > > So in general has any body experience with connecting a none DEC > CD-player to DEC hardware, or vice versa. > > Eugene, As far as I am aware - it isn't possible to read s SUN CD on a Digital CD-ROM. For a DEC machine to understand the data - it must be in files-11 format - unfortunately SUN doesn't use this format. We are current facing the same problem as you - CD's from multiple vendors which apparently require different hardware. Perhaps some wonderful 3rd party manufacturer will produce a CD reader which will be compatible with all the CD's currently available. Cheers, Loretta... =============================================================================== Loretta Davis DECNET: uqvax::ccloreta Supervising Program Librarian INTERNET: ccloreta@uqvax.cc.uq.oz.au Prentice Computer Centre University of Queensland PHONE: +61 7 365 4075 AUSTRALIA FAX: +61 7 365 4477 ===============================================================================
tihor@acf3.NYU.EDU (Stephen Tihor) (02/05/91)
The problem reading say SUN CDs in DEC readers on a VMS machine is not the format of the blocks on the CD but the format of the data in blocks. If you have the ISO CD format drivers and the CD is in ISO format you should be able to read it anywhere. A product engineer mentioned to me that with the INFOserver based cd readers (which just serve blocks) and a reference port (Generic UNIX port). YOu should be able to read a SUN internal format CD once you install the necessary code.
bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) (02/08/91)
In article <BOGAART.91Feb4132542@lager.serc.nl>, bogaart@lager.serc.nl (Eugene Bogaart) writes: > > In the process of buying an CD-player I wonder, whether there is > any form of compatibility between the CD-players and the data format on > disk, because I donot like to buy 3 different (or even more) > CD-players for each architecture of computer equipement. The data on the media is readable by any and all. > > Dec has the RRD40 with SCSI interface for serveral machines. Is there > any chance that another none DEC SCSI player would work as well. (e.g. > Sun Microsystems current CD-player, I believe its number is X559H !) SUN and Apple get a custom version, but DEC will soon use a non-custom Sony CDU-541 as an RRD42. It can read the sound and data formats you know already, and can do the CDI multi-media formats about to become more significant in all our worlds. The file systems all use the disk in whatever perverse way each decides, but that is something you can FIX is your s/w. There is no reason one machine can't be a simple 'disk-block' server to another. DEC's UNIFILE (tm, or whatever) format is a slightly simplified version of their ODS-2 format, apparently intended to simplify use on 'dumbber' (MS-DOS?) machines. You can INI a disk under VMS to the undocumented /STRucture=2.2 format to make your hard disk UNIFILE format. People having their own CDROMs pressed probably aren't bothering, and are just using vanilla ODS-2 for VMS applications.