[comp.sys.amiga.tech] CD-ROM for the Amiga

lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (08/26/90)

In <1199@tardis.Tymnet.COM>, jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) writes:
>In article <1885@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
>>Well, it can (and should) be made compatible with existing data disks, as far
>>as the file system format is concerned; that is, it can be made conformant to
>>the High Sierra or ISO 9660 specs.
>
>Question: Does the CD-ROM file system look exactly like an AmigaDOS file
>system, or is it just somewhat compatible?

Well, depends on what you mean by the 'CD-ROM' file system. If you are
referring to the High Sierra or ISO-9660 file system, then no, it does not look
much like the Amigados file system. Bear in mind that a file system could be
written to be Amigados file system compatible, and to do any necessary fiddling
to make it work with the different block sizes of CD-ROM.

>After seeing how Sun is distributing SunOS-4.1 on CD-ROM, I get the impression
>that the standard for CD-ROMs have a different limitation in the length of
>a file name, have a more restricted set of characters allowed in a file name,
>and have a limitation on the number of periods in a file name.  Also, the
>standard format of CD-ROM for MS-DOS and Macintosh don't handle Unix
>protection bits, much less the AmigaDOS protection bits.

It looks like a file name may have up to 31 character, which may contain a file
name, a  file name extension, and a file version number. This means we may
have two separators. I know, brain dead. I haven't looked at the ISO-9660 spec
yet, so we can only hope someone saw fit to make this a little more versatile.

>In other words, to store the contents of an entire Amiga floppy on CD-ROM and
>preserve all the AmigaDOS attibutes requires using something like ZOO or
>LHARC.  Not all of the files in the current Fred Fish collection could be
>stored on CD-ROM as simple files because some of the file names have illegal
>characters.

Both volume and file attributes are provided for. Again, an Amiga specific
CD-ROM need not be in High Sierra or ISO-9660 format.

-larry

--
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jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) (08/26/90)

In article <1885@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
>Well, it can (and should) be made compatible with existing data disks, as far
>as the file system format is concerned; that is, it can be made conformant to
>the High Sierra or ISO 9660 specs.

Question: Does the CD-ROM file system look exactly like an AmigaDOS file
system, or is it just somewhat compatible?

After seeing how Sun is distributing SunOS-4.1 on CD-ROM, I get the impression
that the standard for CD-ROMs have a different limitation in the length of
a file name, have a more restricted set of characters allowed in a file name,
and have a limitation on the number of periods in a file name.  Also, the
standard format of CD-ROM for MS-DOS and Macintosh don't handle Unix
protection bits, much less the AmigaDOS protection bits.

In other words, to store the contents of an entire Amiga floppy on CD-ROM and
preserve all the AmigaDOS attibutes requires using something like ZOO or
LHARC.  Not all of the files in the current Fred Fish collection could be
stored on CD-ROM as simple files because some of the file names have illegal
characters.

Could someone please post an overview of the current CD-ROM standards?
At least, outline the differences between the High Sierra File System and
AmigaDOS.
-- 
Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: jms@tardis.tymnet.com or jms@gemini.tymnet.com
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R38@psuvm.psu.edu (Marc Rifkin) (08/31/90)

ISO 9660 is an internationally recognized format for CD-ROMs.  It's
architecture is different than AmigaDOS, as it is optimized for
a non-writeable medium.  To the Amiga, it is just another filesystem,
like the old FS, FFS, MSDOS (if you've ever used Cross-Dos), etc.
By using ISO 9660, the Amiga is at least filesystem compatible with
most CD-ROMs- of course it can't run other computers' software, but
the access to data files is there for Amiga native software to use.

Marc Rifkin, R38@PSUVM