[bionet.molbio.genbank] VAX ISO-9660 CD-ROM support

chalup@PRESTO.IG.COM (Michael Chalup) (05/04/91)

I recently spoke to Larry Cole at Digital Equipment Corp.; he wrote
the new ISO-9660 compatible driver for VAX VMS.  Some information:

1.  The driver is now available - DEC part number YT-GS001-01, cost
$275.00 .  The software has been in use for 18 months; however it is
distributed 'unsupported' .  An improved ISO-9660 driver will be available
as part of a new release of VMS 'later in the year'.

2.  The current driver supports only ISO-9660 level one implementation
- restricted to 8 + 3 character (12 byte) file names.  The VMS release
will support the full standard (level 2 or 3?) which allows 31 byte
file names.  A known bug with the current software is that you can't
have a subdirectory with the same name as its root'ed directory
(example: [mydir.mydir]foo_bar.txt will not work).  The driver
doesn't support the proposed Rockridge ISO-9660 extensions - Larry
said these are 'very preliminary'.

For those contemplating producing a CD-ROM with a file structure that
can't conform to the current ISO-9660 standard (examples: file names too
long), an alternative is to pre-master in FILES11 format.  FILES11 is a
native VMS file system that will be usable on VAX's but not on
platforms using a different OS.

				Mike Chalup
				Data Banks Group
				IntelliGenetics, Inc.
				Phone - 415-962-7344
				Internet - chalup@presto.ig.com


Disclaimer: I have no connection with DEC nor can I independently
confirm the accuracy of the above information.

kristoff@GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson) (05/04/91)

Dear GenBank Users,

	Michael Chalup handles database releases for IG's commercial
software, and when he told me about this development I requested that
he post it to the GenBank bulletin board.  Although we have not had an
opportunity to test this driver, the GenBank database is available on
an ISO 9660 CDROM and filenames conform to the 8+3 character
convention, so we believe that this software may allow VAX users to
utilize the GenBank CD instead of magnetic tape.  Apparently the ISO
9660 driver will become a part of VMS in a later release, but you
might want to confirm this with Dec.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				GenBank Manager

				kristoff@genbank.bio.net

Davison@UH.EDU (Dan Davison) (05/04/91)

Dave Kristofferson said:

> Although we have not had an
> opportunity to test this driver, the GenBank database is available on
> an ISO 9660 CDROM and filenames conform to the 8+3 character
> convention, so we believe that this software may allow VAX users to
> utilize the GenBank CD instead of magnetic tape.  Apparently the ISO

I haven't seen the GenBank CD, but the JPL drivers work fine on the
VAX and let me look at almost any CD -- am I missing something here?
Also, there is another excellent driver, free, on the EMBL and UH
servers, by the great biohacker Peter Stockwell. It's called CD-ACCESS
in the VMS sections.  I assume the FTP sites have it also.

If I am mis-understanding something here, please let me know!

dan
-- 
dr. dan davison/dept. of biochemical and biophysical sciences/univ. of
Houston/4800 Calhoun/Houston,TX 77054-5500/davison@uh.edu/DAVISON@UHOU
Disclaimer: As always, I speak only for myself, and, usually, only to
myself.

kristoff@GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson) (05/04/91)

> I haven't seen the GenBank CD, but the JPL drivers work fine on the
> VAX and let me look at almost any CD -- am I missing something here?
> Also, there is another excellent driver, free, on the EMBL and UH
> servers, by the great biohacker Peter Stockwell. It's called CD-ACCESS
> in the VMS sections.  I assume the FTP sites have it also.
> 
> If I am mis-understanding something here, please let me know!
> 
> dan


Dan,

	I personally spend about 10 hours per year on VMS systems, but
I was led to believe that DEC was using VAX drivers that favored a
proprietary format and caused problems reading ISO 9660 CDs.  I would
be delighted to learn that I am wrong in this impression.

Dave

Davison@UH.EDU (Dan Davison) (05/04/91)

Dave Kristofferson said:
> > I haven't seen the GenBank CD, but the JPL drivers work fine on the
> > VAX and let me look at almost any CD -- am I missing something here?
> I was led to believe that DEC was using VAX drivers that favored a
> proprietary format and caused problems reading ISO 9660 CDs.  I would
> be delighted to learn that I am wrong in this impression.

Actually, this is true, as far as it goes. The DEC software on CD is
distributed with a VMS file system format so that you can do COPY and
DIR and other VMS-ish things to one's heart's content.  (Most of the
DEC software on site license here at UH is mounted on a set of CD-ROM
drives).  So yes, if you want to read DEC's CD-ROMS you need the DEC
driver, but if you want ISO CD reading, the JPL or Stockwell drivers
will work fine and are just the right price.

I will check on the re-distribution of the JPL drivers and if they are
available I will put them on the UH Gene-server and send them to the
FTP sites and EMBL.

dan
-- 
dr. dan davison/dept. of biochemical and biophysical sciences/univ. of
Houston/4800 Calhoun/Houston,TX 77054-5500/davison@uh.edu/DAVISON@UHOU
Disclaimer: As always, I speak only for myself, and, usually, only to
myself.