[comp.unix.aux] Using an optical drive w/ AUX

thamer@skiff.cis.ohio-state.edu (M T ) (09/29/90)

  Has anyone had any success using an optical drive (ie. MacInstor)
as additional storage for AUX?  How do you tell AUX to access the
optical ?  The main system is on a HD80, but we want to use an
optical for an additional 512MB of user storage.

  Thanks in advance,

- M. Thamer
--
	"Two days ago I saw a vehicle that'd haul that tanker.  
	 You wanna get out of here; you talk to me."   Max - The Road Warrior

	 M. Thamer @cis.ohio-state.edu

ron@afsg.apple.com (Ron Flax) (09/29/90)

In article <84189@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <thamer@skiff.cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>
>  Has anyone had any success using an optical drive (ie. MacInstor)
>as additional storage for AUX?  How do you tell AUX to access the
>optical ?  The main system is on a HD80, but we want to use an
>optical for an additional 512MB of user storage.

I have the Sony drive (don't recall the number I at home), and it acts
just like any other reasonable SCSI disk drive.. I have to manually
mount/umount it if I want to eject the disk, but asside from that it
works just fine.  No special drivers.  It is SLOW though, so I tend to
just use it for backups.

--
Ron Flax
ron@afsg.apple.com	
Apple Federal Systems Group

ktyra@ivc (Kristopher L. Tyra) (10/02/90)

In article <84189@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <thamer@skiff.cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>
>  Has anyone had any success using an optical drive (ie. MacInstor)
>as additional storage for AUX?  How do you tell AUX to access the
>optical ?  The main system is on a HD80, but we want to use an
>optical for an additional 512MB of user storage.
>
>  Thanks in advance,
>
>- M. Thamer
>--
>	"Two days ago I saw a vehicle that'd haul that tanker.  
>	 You wanna get out of here; you talk to me."   Max - The Road Warrior
>
>	 M. Thamer @cis.ohio-state.edu


Pinnacle Micro, Inc.(800 553-7070) has a device driver package for SONY-SMO
drives that works very well.  However, I believe it only works on their 
opticals.  

Yes, the Apple driver will work fine for the optical drive but it will be 
slower then it should do to the fact that Apple driver keeps re-reading the
partition map.  However, the Apple driver will not allow you to boot from
the optical.  This requires alot of work in tricking the device switch table
and doing some other fun things.

Most educational sites don't like to buy software so I don't know were you
can get the driver free.

However, there is still a group of people trying to make money off writing
software that I'm sure would write you a new driver (No Flame intended).
For example, IVC (800 776-2810) can help you out.



				Kristopher L. Tyra
				Intelligent Visual Computing
				(800) 776 - 2810