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Re: Magneto optical drives and other issues




On Thu, 19 Oct 1995, zinc wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Oct 1995, Stephen Su wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 19 Oct 1995, zinc wrote:
> > 
> > > On Thu, 19 Oct 1995, Stephen Su wrote:
> > > 
> > 
> > It seems like there should still be a way around it.  CDROM drivers for 
> > DOS/Win machines (proprietary, ATAPI, and SCSI) all work with Mac 
> > formatted CDROMs, even though the DOS drivers weren't written with the Mac 
> > format in mind.  The same thing's true about BIOSes and ASPI drivers with 
> > regards to SCSI hard drives.  I don't know anything about how Executor 
> > manages to read Mac media on PC hardware, so I'll defer to ARDI to say 
> > whether this is an Executor limitation or driver limitation.  (BTW, I'm 
> > using ADVASPI.SYS from Advansys and UNI_ASP.SYS from Corel SCSI 2.0 as 
> > the drivers in DOS/Win 3.1.)
> 
> i guess i was not totally clear.  the driver for the DOS machine can't 
> read the Mac _file system_ and, the Mac init cannot read the DOS file 
> system.  
> 
> the CD-ROM file system, however is a standard, something like ISO-9600 or 
> something like that.  thus, mac's and DOS machines can (sort of) 
> interoperate with these, as long as the files are in a format recognized 
> by both.

Except Mac CDs aren't ISO-9600 format, but Executor can read them.  I've 
tried a Mac CD-ROM that DOS 6.22 and Windows 95 *cannot* read but 
Executor can.  The same should hold true for Mac formatted hard drives.  
(i.e. They can't be seen from DOS or Windows 95 but can be seen from 
Executor.)

> obviously, a DOS executable on a CD-ROM will not work on a Mac and 
> vice-versa...

I don't think the vice-versa is true.  I've run Mac programs directly off a 
Mac CD-ROM in Executor.

> i don't know how executor reads the floppy drive directly, but they must 
> do something, esp under linux, since i can't even mount a Mac floppy.

Exactly.  Executor can read the binary format of Mac media (e.g. 
floppies, CD-ROMs, and hard drives) that otherwise can't be seen from the 
DOS/Win machine.  Any clarification from ARDI?

---
Stephen Su    ssu@garnet.berkeley.edu


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