chris@kessner.denver.co.us (Chris Hanson) (04/06/91)
Now, I know this may not be the correct newsgroup for this, but since
we don't have anything like comp.sys.CDTV (and we pro'lly never will.
Maybe comp.sys.AMIGA.CDTV, but anyway...)
After our first two days of playing with our CDTV in the store, I have
found a few fascinating conclusions. These I will share with you.
Let's start it out bluntly. This is not a new hardware platform. This
IS an Amiga 500. It's in a new case. it has no built-in DF0:. It has a MIDI
port, and a 660 or so meg CD ROM. But it still thinks like a 1 meg 500.
Clever hack number one: Apparently someone else has done this prior to me,
but I'll reiterate. You can hook up a normal Amiga 1010 drive (or anyone
else's 1010 compat drive) to the floppy port (yes, it's a normal Amiga 23 pin
floppy port) and stick in a WB 1.3 disk, and it'll boot WB1.3. Some have noted
that you can do a NEWCLI >AUX: in the disk's startup-sequence, and hook up
the serial port to another machine, and have yourself a Shell. Whoop de whoop.
That's no fun.
This machine has full 1.3 ROMS. Apparently they must be modified to add a
few ROM drivers for the weird hardware they added on, but it'll run ANYTHING
that runs on a 1.3 machine with 1 meg. What of the mouse & Keyboard, you ask?
The infrared controller for CDTV is a stroke of genius in design. Not only
does it WORK well (unlike the PCjr's infrared keyboard gimmick), but it is
transparently integrated into the system. The cursor/joystick keypad will
emulate either a joystick or a mouse, toggleable. This emulation is very solid:
It works perfectly with ALL the games I tried, even games that I _know_ read
the hardware directly.
The two buttons, A & B on the controller emulate either the two mouse
buttons, or the single joystick firebutton. The mouse emulation is good enough
to use with Workbench and such (I have...) but not good enough for real
precise work like DPaintIII. Y3es, DPIII runs fine, but the mouse emulation
resolution imposes a grid-effect on your painting.
The keys on the controller (1 through ten on the keypad, enter, escape,
and a few others) emulate their Keyboard equivelnts. Presumably with something
like Black Belt Systems' "Jakeboard" program, you could emulate the entire
keyboard.
The CD ROM drive is implemented as a real Filesystem and device. It
automounts as a device called CD0:, and supports automatic sensing of a
DiskChange event. I have not yet run Xoper to see what exec-level device
it uses, and if it uses the FFS, or something custom. It does not appear
to use scsidisk.device, as I ran the HDToolBox program from the A590 drive,
and it was unable to locate any SCSI or IDE devices.
The drive does NOT appear to use an ISO9660 filesystem. We presume this
as we put in a CD from our 386 machine's SONY drive, and it just ignored
the disk. The jewel-box that you must put this disk into before putting it
in the CD drive IS identical to the jewel-box used on our SONY PC drive.
Has anyone a working or beta ISO9660 Filesystem that you might mail me to
play with?
The "Welcome to CDTV" disk that comes with the unit appears to be a bit
of a rush job. It is an EXCELLENT production, explaining every Port, plug,
light, button, widget and gizmo on the CDTV. Nowhere is the word Amiga EVER
used in this production, and the word "computer" is only heard once, when
mentioning the addition of a disk drive. Even the optional keyboard is called
a "typewriter-style" keyboard. No computers HERE.
Oh, yes, I said a rush job. I only say this because there is a TON of JUNK
files on the disk. I pulled up DiskMaster (a real joy of a program in this
case, when all I had to control the machine was a mouse!) and explored the
contents of the disk. There are miscellenous header files, source files,
programmer documentation, and .LZH files littered about the disk, along with
backups of the images used in the final presentation, and MANY "alternate"
images that were apparently rejected, but never removed. I even found a copy
of a text invoice dictating the terms between Commodore and the artist hired
to do the art for the disk. It details what he will be paid, for what, what
hardware Commodore is loan/selling him, etc. Ooops. Y'might want to do
some housecleaning on this disk Commodore.
For a good laugh, play the presentation called "joke" in the root directory
of the Welcome disk. It consists of the Joke.asl presentation script for the
ASL presentation program (apparently a script-like version of AmigaVision,
written by the same people), and the files Joke.ilbm and Joke.8svx.
It is a FrameGrabbed image of Saddam Huessein (from iraqui TV) and a
sound sample of the classic "I've fallen -- and I can't get up!" line
from that blasted commercial. Needless to say, I fell out of my chair
laughing when I found it on the production disk. Much like the old 'secret'
messages in the Amiga WB, and in the C128.
'Nuff bandwidth wasted. If you have any questions, leave me mail. I'm
having a blasted good time reverse engineering this "Baby."
Chris - Xenon
--
#define chris Christopher_Eric_Hanson || Lord_Xenon || Kelson_Haldane
I work, but you don't know who I work for. And I'm not on their machines.
"It's better to burn out, than to fade away!" -Def Leppard
::I'm chris@kessner.denver.co.us, please.ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (04/06/91)
In article <1991Apr6.034427.14446@kessner.denver.co.us> chris@kessner.denver.co.us (Chris Hanson) writes: > The drive does NOT appear to use an ISO9660 filesystem. We presume this >as we put in a CD from our 386 machine's SONY drive, and it just ignored >the disk. The jewel-box that you must put this disk into before putting it >in the CD drive IS identical to the jewel-box used on our SONY PC drive. The predominant format used on PCs is called "High Sierra", and is not interchangeable with ISO9660. CDTV does not be default support High Sierra, but I understand there's a company making such a file system for the Amiga, and they want it to work on CDTV too. It may not be of nay benefit, though. Thought you could then read PC High Sierra disks, you still wouldn't be able to run the MS-DOS programs stored on them that make the CD work. -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/
stefanb@cip-s02.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stefan Becker) (04/09/91)
ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >The predominant format used on PCs is called "High Sierra", and is not >interchangeable with ISO9660. CDTV does not be default support High >Sierra, but I understand there's a company making such a file system for >the Amiga, and they want it to work on CDTV too. BTW: Will the ISO9660 filesystem be available to the public from C=, so I can buy an SCSI CD ROM drive and use it as Amiga device? Stefan Mail : Stefan Becker, Holsteinstrasse 9, D-5100 Aachen /// Only Phone : +49-241-505705 FIDO: 2:242/7.6 Germany /// Amiga makes Domain: stefanb@informatik.rwth-aachen.de \\\/// it possible.. Bang : ..mcvax!unido!rwthinf!stefanb \XX/ -->A3000/25<--
giguere@csg.uwaterloo.ca (Eric Giguere) (04/09/91)
An ISO CD-ROM filesystem is already available for the Amiga. It's called
"CD-ROM FS" and is produced by Canadian Prototype Replicas here locally.
You should be able to order it through a dealer, or get it directly from
CD-ROM distributors. The cost is about CAN$50, so it's not too expensive.
It also comes with a nifty CD control panel that you can use to play those
music CDs you have... :-)
--
Eric Giguere giguere@csg.UWaterloo.CA
Unlike the cleaning lady, I have to do Windows.