dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) (12/06/90)
Hey folks!! What's the concensus regarding CD ROM drives/systems for the PC/AT world, or for the Mac side, for that matter? I've considered buying a system for quite a while, but hesitated because I wasn't sure about media compatibility between various vendors of drives and ROMware. Also because of the high initial cost of drive systems and sufficient ROMware to make one somewhat useful... Now I see that everybody's purveyor of high-tech toys, Drew Allan Kaplan, is offering a BSR drive and $2452 (list) of ROMs for $699. The selection of ROMware looks like what I'd want to start with, with a whole lot extra. How common is the BSR drive format? Or are they all the same? Would I be able to use the same ROMs on a MAC ROM drive? Also, I've *never* had a problem buying a product from DAK and getting a refund when it didn't work out, BUT: what about software entities, like shrink-wrapped CD ROMs? If I find the whole shebang don't work like I'd hoped/been led to believe, might I be unable to return the disks? "Why, OF COURSE, Mister Bell, we would be perfectly happy to accept the BSR drive system for full refund. Of course, we'll have to charge you $2452 for the disks you opened...." Any thoughts??? Dave dbell@cup.portal.com
scum@virtech.uucp (Steven C. Monroe) (12/07/90)
dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: >Hey folks!! What's the concensus regarding CD ROM drives/systems >for the PC/AT world, or for the Mac side, for that matter? I'm running a Denon DRD-253 (SCSI drive) on both an AT class machine and on a Mac SE/30 with no problems. Well, not at the same time, I change the cables. Anyone have any experience sharing devices? This was a "special deal" that Microsoft was running with the Programmer's Library so it came with a Future Domain controller and all of the Microsoft extensions. I then bought the Mac device driver from Optical Media and a separate Apple SCSI cable. >... offering a BSR drive and $2452 (list) of ROMs for $699. The selection >of ROMware looks like what I'd want to start with, with a whole lot >extra. How common is the BSR drive format? Or are they all the same? >Would I be able to use the same ROMs on a MAC ROM drive? The formats between the Mac and PCs vary. The Optical Media driver will read MAC, High Sierra and the ISO formats. I know the Microsoft extensions will not read the MAC format, it will read the High Sierra format, and I'm not sure about the ISO format. It's nice to be able to read some of the DOS data on the Macintosh. I can pull some of the code from the magazines on CD-ROM put out by Computer Library. A big note is that you can only read the data, and then only if you know the format. The retrieval programs and the format for any indexes end up being greek. There is also a problem with end-of-line (CR/LF) codes. If only I could figure out how to get the Mac File Exchanger to work on the CD-ROM files. It makes them look like normal mac documents but each line has a funky looking little box character at the end. The CD-ROMs from DAK will only run on a IBM PC compatible, I do wish that I could obtain just the CDs though. >Also, I've *never* had a problem buying a product from DAK and >getting a refund when it didn't work out, BUT: what about >software entities, like shrink-wrapped CD ROMs? If I find >the whole shebang don't work like I'd hoped/been led to believe, >might I be unable to return the disks? I don't know for sure but the number of floppy disks (and hard disks too for that matter) required to back up 4-5 600MB CD-ROMs could be quite time consuming...hmm...let's see... "Yes, I want to order three thousand 1.2M floppy disks...yes that's correct...I just want to back up my CD-ROM disks" ;-) Hope this helps. I'm quite happy with my setup, well except for swapping cables - a minor nit. The 600MB capacity would be more impressive back in the 20-40MB hard drive days. >Dave dbell@cup.portal.com -- Steven C. Monroe (703)430-9247 Virtual Technologies, Inc., uunet!virtech!scum 46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160 Sterling, VA 22170
ron@vpnet.chi.il.us (Ron Winograd) (12/08/90)
I have had a lot of experience with CD-ROMS, I work with 5 different compainies. Anyway, here is the deal. Any CD will work on any CD-ROM, at least that I have seen. All that happens is the CD-ROM drive becomes D:, or any drive you specify. From there, it acts just like a hard drive, except you can't write to it of course. Most companies supply software on disks, and those access the drive. However, they do it no differently than a file accessing the hard drive. You can even take a dir of them, just dir d:. It is that simple. Some companies put the executable right on the disk with the data, so all you do to run them is switch to the D: drive, and run the exec like any other drive. CD-ROMS are just like huge hard drives that are unwritable, no different than that. Hope this helps -Ron Ron Winograd <Insert huge 20 line sig here> ron@vpnet.chi.il.us
johnyg@microsoft.UUCP (John GEER) (12/19/90)
In article <1990Dec07.135610.16986@virtech.uucp> scum@virtech.uucp (Steven C. Monroe) writes: >dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: > >>Hey folks!! What's the concensus regarding CD ROM drives/systems >>for the PC/AT world, or for the Mac side, for that matter? >will read MAC, High Sierra and the ISO formats. I know the Microsoft >extensions will not read the MAC format, it will read the High Sierra >format, and I'm not sure about the ISO format. It's nice to be able Yes, Microsoft CDROM extensions for DOS support both HSG and ISO-9660. The differences between the specs are close to negligable. On the subject of Mac's and CDROM... if you are using a vanilla HSG or ISO-9660 disc that has lots of files and directories, expect to wait a while when you pop in the disc. The Mac has to parse the entire file system before you can access a single file (not so with MSCDEX and DOS). The only good thing about this is that you can use a disc with corrupt path tables (because it doesn't USE them)... but then again, why would you? - John Y.