[comp.sys.mac.misc] Mac software for reading "generic" CD-ROMS?

fdm@WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM (Frank D. Malczewski) (06/08/91)

Assume that I have an Apple CD player/Apple driver software, and that I want
to purchase a CD-ROM that is in one of the standard formats supported by
the driver software (e.g., High Sierra).  Further, assume that the CD-ROM
does not come with any software for the Mac to read its files, which are
presumably just basic text files.

Is there any software for the Mac (preferably free :-) that would allow
me to access the files?  If so, where might these be available?

If not, how would one go about writing, for example, an MPW tool to read
the files?  Would it just be a matter of utilizing some of the CD-ROM
odds and ends that have appeared on various Mac developer CD-ROMs and just
pulling the interesting file into an MPW window?

A bit on the naive side, admittedly, but I've not seen a CD-ROM that hasn't
been prepared with the Mac in mind...

--Frank Malczewski                        (fdm@wlv.imsd.contel.com)

gourdol@imag.imag.fr (Gourdol Arnaud) (06/08/91)

In article <1991Jun7.201032.13092@wlbr.imsd.contel.com> fdm@WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM (Frank D. Malczewski) writes:
>Is there any software for the Mac (preferably free :-) that would allow
>me to access the files?  If so, where might these be available?

Well, my understanding of it is that you just need the 
standard "Foreign File Access", such as High-Sierra, to 
have access to these files. They will be available as 
text files only, but if that's all you need... You can 
still Use On Location or such kind of indexing software 
to have a quick access to the CD content.
That's the way it works for audio-CD which appears as 
standard Mac icons on the desktop (altough we can't 
access their content).

Arno.

-- 
    /=============================//===================================/
   / Arno Gourdol.               // On the Netland:  Gourdol@imag.fr  /
  / "A keyboard ! How quaint !"   -- Scott, Star Trek                /
 /=============================//===================================/

blob@Apple.COM (Brian Bechtel) (06/08/91)

fdm@WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM (Frank D. Malczewski) writes:

>Assume that I have an Apple CD player/Apple driver software, and that I want
>to purchase a CD-ROM that is in one of the standard formats supported by
>the driver software (e.g., High Sierra).  Further, assume that the CD-ROM
>does not come with any software for the Mac to read its files, which are
>presumably just basic text files.

>Is there any software for the Mac (preferably free :-) that would allow
>me to access the files?  If so, where might these be available?

When you got the driver for the AppleCD SC drive, you also received four
files:
	Foreign File Access
	High Sierra File Access
	ISO 9660 File Access
	Audio CD Access
Assuming those are installed correctly (all in your System Folder under
System 6.x, Foreign File Access in your Extensions folder under System
7) then you have access to any High Sierra or ISO 9660 formatted CD.
All the files on the CD are treated as text, unless the CD has been
mastered with Apple's Extensions to ISO 9660.

You can read them into a word processor, or into MPW, or whatever you
want to do.  If the files are MS-DOS text files, they'll have the extra
CR character at the end of each line (Mac uses just LF as end of line,
DOS uses CR/LF, Unix uses CR.)

If you're writing your own program, just use standard file system calls.
No special CD-ROM driver calls are necessary.

--Brian Bechtel     blob@apple.com     "My opinion, not Apple's"

unierik@uts.uni-c.dk (Erik Bertelsen) (06/10/91)

.You can read them into a word processor, or into MPW, or whatever you
.want to do.  If the files are MS-DOS text files, they'll have the extra
.CR character at the end of each line (Mac uses just LF as end of line,
.DOS uses CR/LF, Unix uses CR.)
.
.If you're writing your own program, just use standard file system calls.
.No special CD-ROM driver calls are necessary.
.
Yes Foreign File Access and ISO 9660 will give you access to all the
data on the CD-ROM as byte stream files which you can read just like
any other files.

You may however also consider Apple File Exchange (part of Macintosh
system software) to convert the files to Macintosh format. This can be
helpful if you need to see your text with proper new-line representation
or when you have to translate text using DOS character set to use the
Macintosh character set.

regards
Erik Bertelsen
UNI-C, The Danish Computing Centre for Research and Education.