omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley) (04/09/91)
My recent query for comparative reviews of non-Apple CD drives resulted in several responses. Here's the info. MacUser reviewed CD-ROM drives in March 1990 ... and will again soon in June 1991. Macworld reviewed them back in April 1988, but that's too old to be worth much. Macworld covered single products, though, in January, August, and September 1990. CD Technology's Porta Drive (Toshiba mechanism) are reported to work fine, have easy setup, and have much faster access times than Apple. They have audio outs but only a three-position volume switch for headphones. Also, one person recommended using Apple's "CD Remote" DA to fix a problem with the Porta Drive's music interface. Many of the people who responded have purchased several of this model drive. The Toshiba mechanism (XM-3201) is also available in a Toshiba- labeled drive, but the CD Technology version is about $100 cheaper. One person also mentioned that many third-party CD drives use Apple's CD software. The one drive to avoid is the small, low-cost NEC portable drive, which I've seen in a few ads for Adobe fonts recently. It's reportedly quite slow and unreliable. One more place to look for info: ftp to rascal.ics.utexas.edu and look in the archives of the SCSI mailing list (look in misc/scsi). Thanks to Werner Uhrig, John Hardin, John Miller, Scott Gustafson, Jann VanOver, Michael Schechter, and Dave Platt. -John --- John O'Malley / Macintosh / Purdue University / (317) omalley@cc.purdue.edu / Specialist / Computing Center / 494-1787
tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) (04/09/91)
In article <7188@mace.cc.purdue.edu> omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley) writes: >My recent query for comparative reviews of non-Apple CD drives resulted in >several responses. Here's the info. > >MacUser reviewed CD-ROM drives in March 1990 ... and will again soon in >June 1991. Macworld reviewed them back in April 1988, but that's too old >to be worth much. Macworld covered single products, though, in January, >August, and September 1990. > >CD Technology's Porta Drive (Toshiba mechanism) are reported to work fine, >have easy setup, and have much faster access times than Apple. They have >audio outs but only a three-position volume switch for headphones. Also, >one person recommended using Apple's "CD Remote" DA to fix a problem with >the Porta Drive's music interface. Many of the people who responded have >purchased several of this model drive. > >The Toshiba mechanism (XM-3201) is also available in a Toshiba- >labeled drive, but the CD Technology version is about $100 cheaper. We have a Toshiba XM-3201MAC drive here in the Computer Science department hardware lab. I have a few comments about this particular drive. If you are using it purely for data, it's works fine. The drive is indeed faster than the Apple, and we have had no compatibility problems with it whatsoever. If you are using it for playing audio CDs, watch out. The Toshiba driver, does not support all of Apple's music calls. You have to use Apple's CD Remote desk accessory and INIT to play disks, but you can't scan thru the disk (no fast-forward or rewind). You can jump to different tracks, if you wish, you just can't fast-forward into the middle of a track. Other driver calls do not seem to be supported as well, the GetMusicStatus (or whatever it's called) control call consistently returns bad information about the actual status of audio play. When I called Toshiba Disk Products tech support, they told me that they did not write the Mac driver for the XM-3201, and referred all technical questions to Optical Media International. When I called OMI, I was told that the driver was not written by one of their programmers, but by an outside contract programmer. Any questions I had would have to be forwarded by them to the programmer. I faxed them a list of questions 3 months ago, but I still haven't received a response. All in all, I would never buy another Toshiba drive. I don't think that the overall hassle (and the lack of confidence I now have in the companies Macintosh products) would offset the small performance increases and the very slight monetary savings. Tom -- Tom Johnson "I put this moment.............................here tj@cs.ucla.edu I put this moment......................here I put this moment-- Over here!" (Kate)
dplatt@ntg.uucp (Dave Platt) (04/10/91)
In article <1991Apr8.205628.28550@cs.ucla.edu> tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) writes: >If you are using it purely for data, it's works fine. The drive is indeed >faster than the Apple, and we have had no compatibility problems >with it whatsoever. > >If you are using it for playing audio CDs, watch out. The Toshiba driver, >does not support all of Apple's music calls. You have to use Apple's >CD Remote desk accessory and INIT to play disks, but you can't scan >thru the disk (no fast-forward or rewind). You can jump to different >tracks, if you wish, you just can't fast-forward into the middle of >a track. That's not the fault of the driver... not really. The Toshiba XM-3201 mechanism doesn't support a fast-forward or scan-backwards command via the SCSI interface. It might be possible for the driver to emulate the effect, in a crude fashion, by reading the current disc time, stopping the play operation, and then restarting play at a slightly different time. This would probably cause a rather abrupt, jarring effect... not really what you'd want to hear. > Other driver calls do not seem to be supported as well, the >GetMusicStatus (or whatever it's called) control call consistently returns >bad information about the actual status of audio play. Once again, this isn't really the fault of the driver... the Toshiba returns different information in the playback-status byte than the Apple drive does (and it apparently doesn't return all of the possible status codes that the Apple drive can support). Perhaps the driver could do a better job of mapping the Toshiba status codes to the ones that users of Apple drives would expect. The Toshiba's status codes are 0x00 for "PLAY in progress", 0x01 for "STILL operation issued" (user PAUSE, I believe), 0x02 for "AUDIO TRACK SEARCH with PLAY=0 issued" (locate a track and then pause), and 0x03 for other statuses (e.g. "audio play complete") >All in all, I would never buy another Toshiba drive. I don't think that >the overall hassle (and the lack of confidence I now have in the companies >Macintosh products) would offset the small performance increases and the >very slight monetary savings. Well, I've come to a different conclusion... which perhaps reflects the different use I make of the drive. My XM-3201 has been completely reliable in the 18 months I've owned it. It's a _very_ effective CD-ROM drive, and it works quite adequately on the occasions that I use it to play audio discs. It has been able to play, without the slightest hiccough, a couple of off-spec discs that my primary CD audio player had difficulty handling. The underlying technical issue is, I think, that the Apple and Toshiba drives have slightly different command sets and status responses. This is due, I think, to the fact that the SCSI-1 standard did not include a command-set for CD-ROM drives, and so each vendor was forced to invent one. The newer SCSI-2 standard does define a common language for CD-ROM drives, and the next generation of such drives will probably be much more intercompatible. -- Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 813-8917 UUCP: ...apple!ntg!dplatt USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2468 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303
tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) (04/10/91)
In article <50@goblin.ntg.uucp> dplatt@ntg.UUCP (Dave Platt) writes: >In article <1991Apr8.205628.28550@cs.ucla.edu> tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) writes: > >>If you are using it purely for data, it's works fine. The drive is indeed >>faster than the Apple, and we have had no compatibility problems >>with it whatsoever. >> <lot's of Dave's very helpful explanation (an explanation neither Toshiba or Optical Media Intl. were unable to provide to me) deleted> <Here is my conclusion:> >>All in all, I would never buy another Toshiba drive. I don't think that >>the overall hassle (and the lack of confidence I now have in the companies >>Macintosh products) would offset the small performance increases and the >>very slight monetary savings. <And here is Dave's:> >Well, I've come to a different conclusion... which perhaps reflects the >different use I make of the drive. My XM-3201 has been completely >reliable in the 18 months I've owned it. It's a _very_ effective CD-ROM >drive, and it works quite adequately on the occasions that I use it to >play audio discs. It has been able to play, without the slightest >hiccough, a couple of off-spec discs that my primary CD audio player had >difficulty handling. I don't think that we have any disagreement about the data storage aspects of the XM-3201. You'll notice that we have had no compatibility problems with it in the last year or so we've been working with it. It has functioned beautifully in that respect. It is the audio section that has given us so much trouble. I know that the "real" reason we have a CD rom is to make use of all that neat stuff on the developer disks and so we don't have to fool around with dozens of floppies to install A/UX 2.0, but when the drive isn't busy working on "serious" stuff, it's entertaining us (or frustrating us). I wouldn't have been disappointed if I'd known of the deficiencies in the Toshiba drive. But the company certainly didn't mention anything in it's product descriptions and none of the review magazines seemed to notice any problems at all. My biggest complaint is with Toshiba itself. The Tech support people (and I have spoken to several) were unable to be of any help whatsoever--all they were able to do was refer me to OMI, and they couldn't help at all either. I faxed them a huge list of questions. Since they couldn't answer them they were going to forward them to the developer. But I still haven't heard anything back. I'll give them yet another call today. This whole ridiculous thing has just completely shaken my confidence in the product. Dave gave a lot of good explanations as to why the Toshiba drives audio is inferior to the Apple's (or a few others), but there aren't any solutions forthcoming. I'll stand by my conclusion. > >-- >Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 813-8917 > UUCP: ...apple!ntg!dplatt > USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2468 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303 -- Tom Johnson "I put this moment.............................here tj@cs.ucla.edu I put this moment......................here I put this moment-- Over here!" (Kate)
gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) (04/11/91)
From article <7188@mace.cc.purdue.edu>, by omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley): > My recent query for comparative reviews of non-Apple CD drives resulted in > several responses. Here's the info. > ---Several lines deleted--- > The one drive to avoid is the small, low-cost NEC portable drive, which > I've seen in a few ads for Adobe fonts recently. It's reportedly quite > slow and unreliable. I called Educorp about the NEC drives bundled with the NEC package of Adobe fonts. The low priced drive is the CDR-36 which the salesperson claimed had a time of 500 msec. I asked her if she didn't mean 1500, which is the speed advertised for the CDR-35, but she insisted it was 500. The price for the CDR-36 with the NEC Type Gallery is $479, cheaper than the $499 for the CDR-35 alone. Something seems wrong here. Does anyone know anything about the CDR-36? Educorp also bundles a faster NEC drive with the NEC Type Gallery. This is the CDR-73 which the salesperson claimed runs at 300 msec. (There's also an CDR-72 with a speed of 350 msec) The bundle price is $723 (roughly). This seems pretty good if you need the font library and the drive is as good as is claimed. So, again, does anyone have any information on the CDR-73? Gary Davis
mings@geriatrix.cs.uoregon.edu (Ming Yau So) (04/11/91)
In article <4194@uakari.primate.wisc.edu> gdavis@primate.wisc.edu writes: >From article <7188@mace.cc.purdue.edu>, by omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley): >> My recent query for comparative reviews of non-Apple CD drives resulted in >> several responses. Here's the info. >> >---Several lines deleted--- > >> The one drive to avoid is the small, low-cost NEC portable drive, which >> I've seen in a few ads for Adobe fonts recently. It's reportedly quite >> slow and unreliable. > >I called Educorp about the NEC drives bundled with the NEC package of >Adobe fonts. The low priced drive is the CDR-36 which the salesperson >claimed had a time of 500 msec. I asked her if she didn't mean 1500, >which is the speed advertised for the CDR-35, but she insisted it was >500. The price for the CDR-36 with the NEC Type Gallery is $479, cheaper >than the $499 for the CDR-35 alone. Something seems wrong here. Does >anyone know anything about the CDR-36? <<< other lines deleted >>> Here are some of my observations about the differences between NEC CDR-35 and CDR-36 (these are just my personnal observations, not confirmed yet). By looking at the pictures of CDR-35 and CDR-36, I found that the SCSI interface and the drive of CDR-36 is a single unit, unlike the CDR-35, where the drive is detachable from the SCSI interface. Another observation is the CDR-36 does not play, stop, forward, rewind buttons (at least I can't see any of them), so I assume that the CDR-36 cannot work as a portable CD player when disconnected from the computer. -- ___________________________________________________________________________ Ming Yau So | <<< This area >>> Internet: mings@cs.uoregon.edu | <<< intentionally >>> AOL: Ming So | <<< left blank >>>
rbailey@kinetics.com (Robert Bailey) (04/13/91)
The News Manager) Nntp-Posting-Host: plasma Reply-To: rbailey@wc.novell.com Organization: Novell, Inc. References: <7188@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <1991Apr8.205628.28550@cs.ucla.edu> <50@goblin.ntg.uucp> Distribution: usa Date: 11 Apr 91 17:27:50 GMT In <50@goblin.ntg.uucp> dplatt@ntg.uucp (Dave Platt) writes: >In article <1991Apr8.205628.28550@cs.ucla.edu> tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) writes: >>If you are using it purely for data, it's works fine. The drive is indeed >>faster than the Apple, and we have had no compatibility problems >>with it whatsoever. >> >>If you are using it for playing audio CDs, watch out. The Toshiba driver, >>does not support all of Apple's music calls. You have to use Apple's >>CD Remote desk accessory and INIT to play disks, but you can't scan >>thru the disk (no fast-forward or rewind). You can jump to different >>tracks, if you wish, you just can't fast-forward into the middle of >>a track. --lot's o' stuff deleted >The underlying technical issue is, I think, that the Apple and Toshiba >drives have slightly different command sets and status responses. This >is due, I think, to the fact that the SCSI-1 standard did not include a >command-set for CD-ROM drives, and so each vendor was forced to invent >one. The newer SCSI-2 standard does define a common language for >CD-ROM drives, and the next generation of such drives will probably be >much more intercompatible. Actually the problem is more that when Apple defined the set of Control and Status calls that their driver accepts they did it such a way that some of them are highly dependant on the specific command set of the Sony mechanism used in their CD-ROM drive. So when another vender tries to write a driver for another drive it is difficult or impossible to accept all of the possible calls. They aggravated the problem by distributing Hypercard XCMDs, etc. that have effectively established their set of Control/Status calls as a standard. So the problem is not that the command set of the drives is different, but that the driver's Control/Status calls are badly chosen. An analogous situation would be if Apple were to use a HD drive 'X' that had a non-standard command set. They then define a set of Control calls that a HD driver had to accept that depended on 'X's wierd comand set. The File Manager was then made dependant on those calls being accepted. You would have a situation whereby only HD drives made by 'X' would be usuable on a Mac. Now you have a similar situation: multimedia CDs use Apple's XCMDs to control audio playback. CD Remote is used by everyone. And because Apple didn't take a bit of time to look at the specs of any CD-ROM drive besides Sony's, driver writers have to jump through hoops just to make a non-Sony drive behave like a Sony, and often times it is impossible to do a complete job. The only solution now is either for other companies to copy Sony's command set, thus effectively creating an Apple-compatible standard, or for Apple to redesign the interface to their driver to be in line with whatever standard emerges for CD-ROMs. (fat chance.) Robert Bailey rbailey@kinetics.com