[comp.sys.next] Mac CD-ROM mount

Eric.Thayer@cs.cmu.edu (Eric H. Thayer) (12/01/90)

Has anyone successfully mounted a Mac CD-ROM on a 2.0 system?  The scsi 
autoconfiguration code believes I have a Sony CDU-8001, but I can't get 
media to mount. 

----------------------------------
Replies can have NeXT attachments in them
Phone: (412)268-7679

simsong@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Simson L. Garfinkel) (12/03/90)

In article <1990Dec1.121256.14451@cs.cmu.edu>, Eric.Thayer@cs.cmu.edu (Eric H. Thayer) writes:
> 
> Has anyone successfully mounted a Mac CD-ROM on a 2.0 system?  The scsi 
> autoconfiguration code believes I have a Sony CDU-8001, but I can't get 
> media to mount. 
> 
> ----------------------------------
> Replies can have NeXT attachments in them
> Phone: (412)268-7679

You can use the Mac CDROM drive with no problems.  

Using Mac CDROMs may cause problems, however, since the majority of Macintosh
CDROMs are formatted with the Macintosh HFS file system and not with the
High Sierra or the ISO 9660 file systems.

This incompatability problem typifies Apple's thinking: why bother following
a standard?  After all, if you follow a standard, people aren't "stuck" with
the Apple solution.  Just look at the Macintosh RS232, SCSI, Mouse, ...  None
of them follow any standards; as a result, things developed for the Macintosh
cannot be easily moved to Apple's competition.

For CDROM this is especially upsetting, since the point of CDROM was to make
it easy to transport data from operating system to operating system.

The Macintosh CDROM driver will read 9660 disks, and some of the new Macintosh
disks are in this format.

If you want to try to read a CDROM now, get an IBM PC CDROM.  You'll have
no problem with it.

A really good source of cheap CDROMs with interesting information on them
is the Bureau of Electronic Publishing:

	Barry Cinnamon
	President, Bureau of Electronic Publishing
	P. O. Box 43131
	Upper Montclair, NJ 07043
	201-746-3031

I have no affiliation with Barry of the Bureau, but I write about them from
time to time.

				Simson L. Garfinkel
				MIT Media Laboratory

alandail@applelink.apple.com (Alan Dail) (12/03/90)

In article <4249@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, simsong@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU
(Simson L. Garfinkel) writes:
> > 
> > Has anyone successfully mounted a Mac CD-ROM on a 2.0 system?  The scsi 
> > autoconfiguration code believes I have a Sony CDU-8001, but I can't get 
> > media to mount. 
> > 
> > ----------------------------------
> > Replies can have NeXT attachments in them
> > Phone: (412)268-7679
> 
> You can use the Mac CDROM drive with no problems.  
> 
> Using Mac CDROMs may cause problems, however, since the majority of Macintosh
> CDROMs are formatted with the Macintosh HFS file system and not with the
> High Sierra or the ISO 9660 file systems.
> 

On a related subject, how can I go about having the NeXT have the Apple CD-ROM
play the audio tracks on a music CD?  Also, would it be possible to copy the audio
to the NeXT and have the NeXT play them?

Alan--
Alan Dail
NASA/Langley Research Center
ALANDAIL@applelink.apple.com

minich@d.cs.okstate.edu (Robert Minich) (12/04/90)

by simsong@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Simson L. Garfinkel):
| You can use the Mac CDROM drive with no problems.  
| 
| Using Mac CDROMs may cause problems, however, since the majority of Macintosh
| CDROMs are formatted with the Macintosh HFS file system and not with the
| High Sierra or the ISO 9660 file systems.
|
| This incompatability problem typifies Apple's thinking: why bother following
| a standard?  After all, if you follow a standard, people aren't "stuck" with
| the Apple solution.  Just look at the Macintosh RS232, SCSI, Mouse, ...  None
| of them follow any standards; as a result, things developed for the Macintosh
| cannot be easily moved to Apple's competition.

  Isn't NeXT RS232 == Mac RS232? What standard does the NeXT mouse follow? Can
you just plug in a MickeySoft Mouse? What is non-standard about Mac SCSI? (I
know about the software side, but what about the hardware?) What standard did
NeXT follow with NeXTstep? It's not X. It's not OpenLook or Motif. You have a
good idea but you've picked extremely poor examples. :-)
  There are problems with using ISO 9660 file systems with a Mac that are best
solved by using the Macs native file system. Although the Mac FS is, to my
knowledge, unique, it is that way for a good reason. Standards aren't
worthwhile if they hinder more than they help.
 
| For CDROM this is especially upsetting, since the point of CDROM was to make
| it easy to transport data from operating system to operating system.

  I thought the idea was to have gobs of data on a cheap medium. If I want to
transport data across OS boundaries, a network is probably more useful and some
sort of mass storage device (DAT, hard disk, tape, ...) would also be
appropriate depending on the circumstances.
  Sure, some data should be easy to use across OS platforms (GIFs, textual data,
etc.) but what are you going to use, say, MicroSoft Office (Mac version) for on
non-Mac platforms that outweighs the pain involved in using a non-Mac file
format. If you want to be cool and show me how flexible UNIX is, why not just
write a driver for Mac formatted volumes? Read only media should be a snap and
read-write media aren't _too_ difficult. Or might UNIX choke with a different
file sys philosophy? You can get the documentation in Inside Macintosh... <grin>

| The Macintosh CDROM driver will read 9660 disks, and some of the new Macintosh
| disks are in this format.

  The mac will read any ISO 9660 format volume. Except for a cute test floppy, I
don't know of anything available that utilizes this.
-- 
|_    /| | Robert Minich            |
|\'o.O'  | Oklahoma State University| "Get bent."
|=(___)= | minich@d.cs.okstate.edu  |               -- Bart Simpson
|   U    | - Ackphtth               |