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CD-ROM FAQ 3.5.1 (31.12.95) =========================== Table of Contents: ================== 0. Preface > 1. Technical info 1.1 Layers of a CD 1.2 Dataformat 1.3 Filing systems > 1.4 The future of the CD 2. The Interface 2.1 SCSI > 2.2 AT-Bus > 2.3 (E)IDE 2.4 PCMCIA adaptors > 3. Hardware: > 3.1 Single, double, triple, quad-speed and beyond > 3.2 List of CD-ROM drives > 3.3 CD-Changer > 3.4 CD-Recordable 4. Caddy or drawer 5. Problems 5.1.1 A3000 Western Digital 00-04 PROTO chip 5.1.2 A3000 V36 Bootroms, A209x FIRMWARE 5.1.3 External SCSI 5.2.1 A4000 internal drive bay 5.2.2 A4000 (E)IDE-Controller 5.3.1 Synchronous transfer > 6. CD-ROM filesystems > 6.1 Filesystems > 6.2 Utilities 7. Combinations of computer/controller/CD-ROM-drive 8. Audio 8.1 Amiga-audio and CD-AUDIO > 8.2 Digital audio 9. PhotoCD 10. Installation hints 10.1 SCSI 10.2 AT-Bus/IDE 10.3 Utilities 11. CDs for other plattforms 11.1 Magazines > 11.2 Special PC-CDs 11.3 PC emulations > 11.4 Macintosh emulations > 11.5 Data formats 11.6 MPEG, FULL Motion Video 12. CD32-games > 13. CD+G > 14. Misc > 14.1 CD-Write > 14.2 Access CDs in a BBS > A. Glossar > B. Legal Stuff C. Extensions and corrections > D. How to get it ----- > := new since release 2.0 0. Preface ========== This FAQ differs a little from the normal FAQs with questions and answers. But before you read on, please consider answering the following questions: · What amiga and what equipment do you own? · How much money can you spend for a CD-ROM drive? · What is it you expect from the drive? · What future equipment will you buy? If you answer those questions you will see which chapter to read. If you compare prices, please note that you'll need a seperate housing for an external drive, that you'll need a driver and sometimes you don't have the right controller. Check the advertisements for the best >complete< offer, not for the cheapest drive. And be carefull: if you buy a drive at your local pc-dealer and the drive doesn't work with your amiga but does with a pc, no one will take it back and reward you the money. Buy at a specialist, an amiga dealer. There is no such thing as THE CD-ROM, accessing data on the little, shining disk is a complex together of several components. Chapter (1,11,12,13) (3,4) (2) +----------+ +-------+ +-----------+ | CD-ROM |-| Drive |-| Interface |----+ +----------+ +-------+ +-----------+ | | +---------------------------------------+ | | +------------+ +--------+ +--------+ +----------+ +-------| Controller |-| Device |-| Driver |-| Software | +------------+ +--------+ +--------+ +----------+ Chapter (5,7) (6) (8,9,10) 1. Technical info ================= 1.1 Layers of a CD ------------------ This 1.2mm thick polycarbon-disk is produced using a spray-print- technique and a negative matrix. A CVD process is used to apply the reflecting 100Å (0.1µm) aluminum layer. To protect this layer from scrating and altering by mistake 5-10µm of protective coat is applied. On top of this the disk description and labeling is done with conventional printing technique. ###### #### ## ## ### #### Description, Label -------------------------------- protective coat ================================ reflecting aluminium layer ································ information dots |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| polycarbon-carrier |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| What does this mean: · The CD is scanned from the down-side not from the top like a conventional music album (LP). Scratches, holes or other damage on the polycarbon-carrier will probably prevent the laser from reading the information. Some scratches can be eliminated using a special polish-kit for CDs. · The information layer is only protected by the thin reflecting aluminium and the protective coat. Deep scatches will destroy the information dots immediatly. · Do not use any kinds of pens that are labeled "permanent" or "waterproof" for custom labeling the disk. These pens may damage the coat layer and then the reflecting layer. 1.2 Data format --------------- The data on a CD is stored on a track winding from the inside to the outside of the disk. This makes it possible to have disks with different dimensions as the 8cm single-CD, the normal CD and the 23cm LaserDisk for video. The holes in the surface are called "pit" and represent a "1" opposed to the "land" which reprsents the "0". Pits and land cover a great deal of the synchronisation and therefore the data can not be stored as in the digital memory of the computer, but is transformed (like MFM or RLL on harddisks) into a code know as 8-to-14-modulation or EFM. This means 8 bits are coded to 14 bits on the cd track. The first dataformat is caled a "short frame" and converts 24 bytes: Name: Sync control data Data Parity Data Parity ------------------------------------------------------------------- Bit: 24 14 12×14 4×14 12×14 4×14 The error correction is done by parity bits and is called CIRC (Cross- Interleaved-Reed-Solomon-Code). An audio CD player rreads 7350 of this short frames in a second which results in 1764000 bytes for two (stereo) channels with 44100Hz each. This is defined in the first book: "The Red Book". On a CD-ROM 98 of this short frames are grouped togehther as a "long frame" with 2352 bytes of data according to the first CD-ROM book: "The Yellow Book". Name: Sync Header Data Sektor-Address Mode ------------------------------------------------ Bytes: 12 3 1 2336 The mode byte now defines how to interpred the following data: Mode-1: ------- Name: Data EDC free ECC ECC P-Parity Q-Parity -------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes: 2048 4 8 172 104 Mode-2/Form-1: -------------- Name: Subheader Data EDC ECC ECC P-Parity Q-Parity ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes: 8 2048 4 172 104 Mode-2/Form-2: -------------- Name: Subheader Data EDC -------------------------------------------- Bytes: 8 2324 4 EDC = Error Detection Code ECC = Error Correction Code RSPC (Reed Solomon Product-like Code) Mode-2/Form-1 does not differ from Mode-1, but it is illegal to switch between modes on a track, so Mode-2/From-1 is defined to "emulate" Mode-1. This is because the new XA-standard holds important program data in error corrected M2/F1 (aka M!) frames, but the unimportant audio/video data is kept in the "longer" M2/F2 frames. This offers more space for the AV data without sacrifieing the security of program data. Each short frame hold 14 control bits called P to W. Since every long frame hold 98 P bits (and 98 Q bits, and 98 R bits ...) this bits are grouped together and they form the subchannels: · P - start of a track · Q - directory, timecodes, catalognumbers Subchannels R to W are currently free, but used on a CD+G for storing of graphical data or on a CD+MIDI for the MIDI data. On the data sheets of your CD-ROM you may find data transfer rates in Mode 1 and Mode 2. This is not a mode of your SCSI or IDE bus but is the above data mode. You will see e.g. 150kb/s for Mode 1 (or M2F1) and 176kb/s for Mode 2 (M2F2). And since M2F1 holds this ~26kBytes of additional ECC data, these data rates are identical! 1.3 Filesystem -------------- The data format of the CD is equal for all CDs. But what really matters is the filing system, that keeps togehter the files and programs on a CD-ROM. There are proprietary formats such as the MacHPFs which is equal to the one used on Macintosh' harddisks. But the rest of the world uses the High-Sierra (named after the Hotel where the convetion of the developers took place) or its successor the ISO 9660 formats for storing the data. Be aware, that there is really no operating system, that internaly uses a ISO 9660 filing system. All OS therfor must use a driver to convert the ISO information on the files to native OS filing informations. ISO 9660 is known to be a "least common" filing system and nearly all other operating systems store more info for there files than ISO can offer them. So the history of the CD filing system is as folows: High Sierra - (only MS-DOS kompatibel characters and file identifiers 8+3, limited directory tree) ISO 9660 Level 1 - same as High Sierra with marginal changes. ISO 9660 Level 2 - filenames can hld 31 characters¹. Since al of the user/group and status bit information is gone under ISO, the RockRidge interchange protocoll RRIP standrad expands fully transparent to Level 1 the filing informations. A driver that is RRIP unaware will not see the additonal information, but a drivers which does see the RRIP, can display lots of more information on the files and go near the OS file system. This includes mixed case, gokal names, status bits, corrected directory tree etc. ¹On early amiga specific CD-ROMs some developers have tried to rebuild the AmigaFS. These disks are no real ISO9660L2 disks and useless on other than Amiga systems. This applies for older CDTV titles. 1.4 The future of the CD ------------------------ not yet :-( 2. The interface ================ 2.1 SCSI -------- For anyone who already owns a SCSI-controller(A3000(T), A4000T) there is one choice: buy a SCSI CD-ROM drive. Connecting it is as simply as connecting a harddisk. And you will get a marvelous piece of hardware that can be conneted to any other known computersystem even if it's not labelled "Int*l *ns*d*". If tranfer for digital audio data over the interface is a must for you, there is no other choice. Only two brand new IDE-drives offer this feature, but there are no drivers available for the Amiga and those drives. 2.2 AT-Bus ---------- Well, IDE-style CD-ROM drives, often called "AT-Bus"-drives seem to be much cheaper, but you have to pay extra for a special controller or interface/software for the build in controller (for the A600, A1200, A4000 internal IDE-controller). Why a special controller, they are IDE, aren't they? IDE or AT-Bus-style drive are not fully IDE as hard disks. There were three differnt connection standards for such drives named after the companies that invented them¹: · Mitsumi · Sony · Panasonic For a PC every drive comes with a tiny special custom controler or it uses the connector on a soundcard (that's why the card come with four (4!) different CD-ROM drive connectors in these days!) None of these drives are able to directly run on an existing Amiga IDE-controller. Since the Mitsumi is the closed fit to real IDE-interface, there are two known adapters: the bsc tandem (for Mitsumi interface and IDE/ATAPI drives, but it also hosts up to 2 real IDE hard disks) and the CD-ROM-Kit, with adapts the internal Amiga IDE-interface (or the Access!-IDE-adaptor for A2000 by the same manufacturer) to Mitsumi-style connectors. I do not know any kind of hardware to use Sony- or Panasonic- style drives! But remember that you have to pay extra for the special controller, so a real SCSI or IDE/ATAPI may come cheaper than a combination of AT-Bus drive and controller. ¹in the meantime all proprietery interfaces have been abandoned and were replaced with the EIDE/ATAPI interface. 2.3 (E)IDE ---------- In the last month all mayor manufactures have shown new drives labeled EIDE (e.g. the new Mitsumi FX300/FX400). But... these drives finally are true IDE-Drives, and though they run best with EIDE-controllers they will submit to normal IDE-controllers. So you noticed it, their is a little shift in terms: IDE for CD-ROM drives is not IDE for hard disks but some proprietery standrad. EIDE for hard disks is not the same for CD-ROM drives, it's IDE with the new ATAPI definition (which of course is part of EIDE!) for other than hard disk media. You may smile and try to connect a EIDE-style CD-ROM drive to an existing IDE-controller... it will fail. Any controller for the Amiga is just for hard disks, not for CD-ROMs. This is mainly a software problem, since all interfaces and their drives are not awre of devices other than harddisks on the IDE bus. So you can connect a IDE/ATAPI drive directly to the A4000, but you'll need a patch of the internal "scsi.device" for that. Some special software devices that patch scsi.device or replace it totally. So you may not need a hardware-interface but a special kind of driver! Ask the manufacturer of your IDE adaptor for a new software that allows a IDE/ATAPI drive on the bus. If you have an A600/A1200/A4000 your choice should be the CD-ROM-Kit, so you don't have to sacrifice another valuable Zorro-slot for the controller. For owners of a A2000 with no SCSI-Controller the tandem seems the best choice... if you can't find a working IDE-solution for your controller. If you connect a CD-ROM to your intrenal IDE bus, you must take care of some things: The CD-ROM drive must be set to act as a SLAVE on the bus and interrupt generation may not be disabled. The harddrive must be set to act as a MASTER. If you have a drive with a combined setting for SINGLE or MASTER operation, leave it that way, if not, rejumper it from SINGLE to MASTER operation. Computer Device Vendor Type ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A4000 Access SpeedCD VOB commerz. Tandem ad_atapi.device AlfaData/Oliver Kastl commerz. A600 A1200 A4000(T) atapi.device Oliver Kastl PD A4000 atapi.device Georg Campana PD VOB offers besides the old kit for the the use of 2 HDs and one Mitsumi-style CD-ROM a new kit caled Multi AT/IDE which allows the connection of 4 HDs and one ATAPI CD-ROM. Oliver Kastls atapi.device also supports upto 4 devices on the internal IDE with a special adaptor. 2.4 PCMCIA adaptors ------------------- For the A600/A1200 with PCMCIA-slots there are several offers for external drives with adaptors that uses this slot. If it's cheap enough for you, go get it. PCMCIA is one of the least used slots anyway, so a good choice for the CD-ROM drive. If you choose a triple or quad-speed drive it will be a real IDE/ATAPI drive on a real IDE controller. This often will allow the connection of some harddrives, too. All these controllers come with special software/drivers so you do not need to fear any incompatability. Computer Adaptor CD-ROM-adaptor ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A1000/A500 SCSI SCSI AT ??? A2000 SCSI SCSI AT SCSI incl. SCSI controller Tandem CD-ROM-Kit for Access!-controller A3000(T) SCSI SCSI A600/A1200 AT CD-ROM-Kit, Multi AT/IDE PCMCIA (Overdrive-CD, tandem, Squirrel) A4000 AT CD-ROM-Kit, Multi AT/IDE Tandem Speed-Up System A4000T SCSI SCSI Controller HDs CD-ROM drives -------------------------------------------------------------------- SCSI yes with SCSI Tandem yes Mitsumi LU005S, FX001S/D, FX300(FX400 CD-ROM-Kit yes Mitsumi FX-, FQ-Series Multi AT/IDE yes IDE/ATAPI CD-ROMs Squirrel yes with SCSI Overdrive-CD Mitsumi(?) 3. Hardware =========== 3.1 single, double, triple, quad-speed and beyond ------------------------------------------------- Compact Disk Digital Audio (CDDA) is transmitted with 44100Hz on 2 channels using 16Bits each. So this comes down to 44100Hz * 2channels * 2Bytes and gives us a 172KB/sec transfer rate. On audio there can be some drop outs, but for digital information on CDs, a flipped bit is deadly. So some error correction codes (ECC) drop the rate for CDROM to 150KB/sec. That's what they call "single". "Double" than is 300KB/sec, "Triple" is 450KB/sec and "Quad" or "Quadro" is 600KB/sec. There are also drives that transmit a little bit more: 2.4times (Sony), 3.5times (Toshiba), 4.4 times (Sony) or even 6.7times (Toshiba). Double is a must. You won't get decent rates on playing animations or videos from a single speed drive. And there are no single speed drive anymore. So Double and triple were state-of-the-art in 1994, in 1995 quad-speed and hex-speed were a good choice, oct-speed drives are in the making and will see the light in 1996. So look what you have to spend on the drive and get the best you can afford. More than oct-speed probaply wont happen, since technology moves on and should offers us new double- layered, doubelsided CDs with more than 10 gigabytes in 1996. These disks will use a differnt style of laser and electronic and you won't be able to read those on todays drives anyway. You may also see in some program manuals the term "sustained transfer rate". If you require a STR of 300kb/s a double speed CD-ROM is not a real good choice. 300kb/s is the all time maximum transfer rate of such a drive and since there is a little overhead of your OS or driver you may never get 300kb/s out of a double-speed CD-ROM. For this reason you should buy a triple or better drive. Some manufactures offer drives with 2.2, 3.4 or 4.4times speed. these drives are able to compensate for the OS/driver overhaed and give you the STR you need without buying a drive of a higher class. To read a CD-I (which in my opionion is not a theme on the Amiga) your drive must be able to spin as a double, but most of the drives only support single (for audio playback) and the maximum spin rate. So watch it if CD-I is a point for you. And consider another fact: For the Amiga the CD is merely a software archive. No company has released software that needs the CD-ROM drive for a large database or such. (not talking about games, remember!) So quad-speed will do the job for you. 3.2 List of CD-ROM drives ------------------------- Vendor/Typ Interf. Speed Cache Mech. Mount Audio DA MS CDG PCD VCD CDI CDA [KB] h/v [/mm] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mitsumi LU005 Mitsumi 1 Drawer h no - FX001S Mitsumi 1 Drawer h no - FX001D Mitsumi 2 Drawer h no - FX300 EIDE 3 Drawer h no * FX400 EIDE 4 128 Drawer h MPC no * * Toshiba XM4101B SCSI-2 2 64 Drawer h/v LGGR yes * * * * * * XM3301B SCSI 1 Caddy h/v yes - - - - - * XM3401B SCSI-2 2 256 Caddy h/v yes * * * * * * XM5201B SCSI-2 3.4 64 Drawer h GRL/2 yes * * * * - * XM5301B² SCSI-2 2/4 256 Drawer h GRL/2 yes * * * * * * XM5302B² EIDE 2/4 256 Drawer (h/v) GRL/2 yes * * * * * - XM3501B SCSI-2 4 256 Caddy h/v RGL yes * * * * * * XM3601B SCSI-2 4.4 256 Drawer h RGL yes * * * * * * XM3701B SCSI-2 7.4 256 Drawer h/v GRL yes * * * * - * NEC 2X SCSI 2 Drawer h LGR yes 2Xc² SCSI-2 2 7 Changer yes 3X SCSI 3 Caddy h/v LGR yes 3Xp SCSI-2 3.3 Top h/v yes 4X² SCSI-2 2/4 Caddy h/v RGGL yes CDR-273 EIDE 4 no CDR-512 SCSI-2 6 6Xi SCSI-2 6 CDR-727 EIDE 4 no Apple CD-150 SCSI-1 1 Caddy h/v PowerCD SCSI-1 1 Top h/v CD-300 SCSI-2 2 Caddy h/v yes CD-300e PLUS² SCSI-2 2 Caddy h/v RGGL yes CD-600 SCSI-2 4 Caddy h/v Sony CDU 561 SCSI-2 2 Caddy h/v yes CDU-8002 SCSI ? ? yes CDU-8003A ? ? ? yes CDU-55S² SCSI-2 2/2.4 Drawer h RGGL yes CDU-77E EIDE 4 Drawer h no CDU-76S SCSI-2 4 256 Drawer (h/v) RGGL (yes) CDU-76E EIDE 4 128 Drawer (h/v) MPC (yes) Sanyo CDR 254S SCSI-2 4 Drawer CDR 254 EIDE 4 Drawer no IBM CDRM00101 SCSI-1 1 Caddy h/v yes Panasonic CR-503B SCSI-2 2 Drawer h GLGR (yes) CR-504B SCSI-2 4 256 Drawer h - no CR-581B EIDE 4 128 Drawer (h/v) MPC yes PD System SCSI-2 4 256 Drawer h MPC no Hitachi CDR-6550² SCSI-2 2 Drawer h GRL CDR-6750² SCSI-2 2 Caddy h/v GRL yes CDR-1950 SCSI ? ? yes Pioneer DR-U104x SCSI-2 4 Caddy h/v yes DR-U124X SCSI-2 4.4 128 Drawer h MPC (yes) DR-UA124X EIDE 4 no DRM602X SCSI-2 2 6 Changer DRM604X SCSI-2 4 6 Changer DRM624X SCSI-2 4.4 6 Changer Texel 3024/5024 SCSI ? ? yes Nakamishi MBR-7²³ SCSI-2 2 7 Changer yes Chinon CDS-525S² SCSI-2 2 Drawer h RGGL CDS-535² SCSI-2 2 Caddy h/v RGL CDS-545i EIDE 4 128 Drawer h MPC no Plextor PX 43 CS SCSI-2 4 Caddy h/v RGGL PX 63 XCS SCSI-2 6 256 Caddy h/v MPC (yes) PX 43 CS+ SCSI-2 4.5 Caddy h/v MPC (yes) PX-4XCE SCSI-2 4 256 Caddy h/v Teac CD 56E EIDE 6 128 Drawer h MPC yes CD-55A EIDE 4 no CD-55E EIDE 4 no Wearness CDD-120 EIDE 2 Philips PCA42CR EIDE 4 128 Drawer h MPC no GoldStar R520B EIDE 2 no R542B EIDE 4 no R320B SCSI 2 Optics Stingray 8422 EIDE 8 256 Drawer h LGGR no Stingray 8322 EIDE 6 256 Drawer h LGGR no Lion Optics XC-600EI EIDE 6 256 Drawer h LGGR no XC-400EI EIDE 4 256 Drawer h LGGR no Vertos 400ETD EIDE 4 128 Drawer h MPC no ----- ¹all drives are able to spin single for audio playback ²CD-I compatible, spins double ³Needs a new WD00-08 SCSI controller chip if operated in an A3000 *out of production 3.3 CD-Changer -------------- A CD changer acts just like a normal cd-rom drive. The only difference is the additional changing mechanism. As of this writing a know only one IDE 3disk changer but i do not have any further information on it. So the following will apply to SCSI disk changers only! To access a disk tehre are two ways: first you can issue a special diskchange command via the scsi-bus, or - if the drive supports it - the disk are accessed via LUNs. AsimWare supports the mounting of all disks within a changer and you see all CDs as icons on your Workbench. If you open one, this disks becomes active. The special diskcahnge command is a rare used method, LUNs are the better choice, but a lot of Amiga SCSI-controllers support the LUNs rather badly or not at all. So, befor you choose a disk changer as your drive, be sure your SCSI controller supports LUNs. Commodore adapter of the Ax091 series do, also the Octagon, but the Fastlane Z3 does not. 3.4 CD-Recordable ----------------- A CD recorder first acts as a normal (quad-speed) CD-ROM drive. Only with special software it will write empty golden or green colored CDR disks. CD recorder currently come only with a SCSI interface and the onyl software, that supports writing a CD is AsimWares MasterISO. (Do not fall for the NGMaster PD software on several boards, thats a pirate copy of an older MasterISO!) A real demo of the new program is on aminet and you can first check, if the CD recorder you are about to buy is supported by the software. Also an issue is the hadrdiskspace you need for the writer. CDrs are not useable as a removeable! Considerartions of bandwidth and sustained data transfer rates often force you to generate an "image" of the CD you are going to burn. (The CD recorder is not abble to cache the incomming data long enough to deliever a continous data stream to the writing mechanism, but a CDR can not be written in little peaces, but a session must be written in one cycle. If the harddisk filesystem can not deliver the data as fast as needed, the recorder will terminate the session or the whole CD. Therefor you will also need at least a 68030/25 and a good SCSI controller in your Amiga! This file is build from the sources you enter, but to arrange a well done CD you must at least have a harddisk, that can be used as a pseudo CD. So in a worst case scenario you will need two time 700MB for arranging the CD and generating the write image. You can do with less space, but the written CDs are surely no product for mass market production. Vendor/Type Write- Read-Speed ---------------------------------------------- Plasmon CDR F4102 2 4 PD2000i 2 4 Yamaha CDR-100 2 4 JVC XRW2001 2 4 Philips CDD20000 2 4 4. Caddy or drawer ================== Caddies and drawers come from two different points of the market: A disk is very well protected in a caddy. and the mechanics of the drive is more complicated. Theses drives are mainly for the professional market; they have more expensive disks (US-$1000 or more) with valuable contents (adresses, books etc.) and they don't change these disk not very often. Sometimes only once a year or so. On the other hand, disks for the mass market come very cheap (US-$10 or less) and with constantly changing contents, you probably have more than one disk that contains interesing data. At home you may flip through these disks very often in a short time. So the drawer gives you faster access to the disks but is less protective. So what to buy? If you have a expensive valuable disk the costs for the caddy (~US-$5) wont matter, neither will the higher price for the drive. But if you are a normal home user, you probably have those magazine disks and you're not willing to spend more than 30 bucks for a CD. If you have a caddy for each of them this could get expensive for you. "Hey, I can change the disk in the caddy, so I do need only 2 or 3 caddies!" you might say. But you're going to sacrifice the higher protection (and cheaper caddies sacrifice the mechnics of your drive. It's just not built to insert, eject, insert, eject, insert, eject... in a high frequency!) Caddy: good protection for valuable disks, every disk should have a caddy, mechanism is not build for high changing frequency, can operate in vertical position Drawer: medium protection for the mass market, easy access to the disk, mechanism can withstand high changing frequency, can not operate in a vertical position (except for the XM4101 or equal drives!) 5. Problems ----------- 5.1.1 A3000 Western Digital Proto Chip 00-04 -------------------------------------------- All Toshiba drives (3x01, 4101, 5x01) work with the PROTO SCSI controler chip in the A3000 or on the A2091 controller card. If you exspect problems you can exchange it with a 00-08 for about US-$40 or less. Look in the filesystem compatibility table for drives that work with Proto-controllers! The NEC 2xc/NAKAMISHI MBR-7 7disk changer needs a WD 00-08 or it will not work. 5.1.2 A3000 V36 Bootroms, A209x FIRMWARE ---------------------------------------- You should further note that the V36 scsi.device (and the one in the A2091 firmware) has severe problems with no bootable devices such as empty SyQuest drives and empty CD-ROM drives. With CD drives it depends on the kind of CD inserted during boot how long the timeout will be. Once you have booted with V37 and higher you do not have these long time-outs since the new scsi.device recognises the wrong disk type and moves on. CD timeout time ---------------------------------------------------- no CD inserted very long >30sec CD-DA disk long ~20sec XA+RRIP medium ~10sec plain ISO9660 short ~2-5sec After the controler has 'touched' the drive for the first time you can hit the eject-button, this will speed up things a little. But its annoying. But if you leave the drive empty at power-up the Amiga will take even longer to boot. The V36 scsi.device has a really long time-out, no disk or unbootable/unreadable disks are not detected very well. V37, V40 ROMs boot rather fast and once you have passed the cold boot, next time you reset it comes up very fast. There is a solution for this: mount all harddrives before the cd-rom drive (i.e. give the cd-rom the highest ID) and use the tool RDBFlags to tell the controller what harddrive is the last one. Beyond this ID the scsi.device will not search. But beware, the tool could do severe damage! Read the manual very carefully! NOTE: The Toshiba 3401 needs the Sync-Bit in the BattMem cleared if operated under AmigaOS3.1 or higher. The build-in scsi.device pays for the first time attention to this flag and the drive does not like it if synchronous transfer modes are initiated by the controller. The amiga simply locks up during boot. The Toshiba 4101 (and probably all following drives) do not have this kind of problem. 5.1.3 A3000 External SCSI ------------------------- If you exsperience problems on external SCSI-devices on you A3000 check if the term-power diode is inserted correctly. Several revisions had wrongly placed diodes and so have problems with external devices. 5.2.1 A4000 internal drive bay ------------------------------ On early A4000 Commodore used "thick" Power-Supplies. As a result the 5.25" drive bay is a little to small for standard equipment such as CD-ROMs, 5.25" floppies and SyQuests. Most of the time the drive itselves fits but there is no space left for the power- and bus- connectors. Double-check you drive bay before you buy a device for the internal space in your A4000! 5.2.2 A4000 (E)IDE Controller ----------------------------- See first chapter 2.3! The internal scsi.device of the A600/A1200 and A4000 models do not recognice CD-ROMs. Use the mentioned extensions for this. 5.3.1 Synchronous transfers --------------------------- Some CD-ROM drives do not like (or do not support) synchronous transfers over the SCSI bus. And since some controllers only allow a global synchron/asynchron selection, this may prevent you from using a fast transfer mode for your harddisk (e.g. Quantum 730S). So please check all of your equipment (e.g. with ProbeSCSI) if it supports synchronous tranfers. Only if all support this, it is save to initiate it. 6. CD-ROM filesystems ===================== 6.1 Filesystems --------------- To access cd-roms you'll need a special drive that adapts the different layout of the cd-rom filesystem to the amiga filesystem conventions. (Just like CrossDOS does this for PC-disks). Your Driver needs to know the old High-Sierra and the current ISO9660 file systems with additional RockRidge Extensions. Reading the proprietary MacHFS is not that important for only-Amiga users. If you do not own an AGA-Amiga, support for CD³² is also not nesscassary. Name Type HS ISO RRIP MacHSF CD³² CDTV ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AmiCDFS (PD) x x x x - - AmiCDROM 1.15 (PD) - x I² x - - AmigaCD (WB3.1) - x - - - - AsimWare 3.4 (Com) x x - x x x BabelCDROM (Com) x x I/G³ - - - CacheCDFS 2.7¹ (Com) - x I x x - Xetec CDx 2.x (Com) x x - x - x Hardware w/ Driver HS ISO RRIP MacHSF CD³² CDTV ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CD³² x x I - x x Overdrive-CD x x x x x - tandem IDE/PCMCIA¹ - x I x x - VOB x x x - x - Squirrel - x x - x - ----- HS := reads High-Sierra Format ISO := reads ISO 9660 compliant disks with FAT 8+3 naming scheme RRIP := reads the extended architecture disks with long names and unlimited directory structure and file attributes. (most Amiga CDs come this way) MacHFS := reads Apple Macintosh HPFS CDs CD³² := comes with a CD³²-Emulator, s.b. CDTV := comes with a CDTV-Emulator ¹the bsc tandem comes with a spezial version of CacheCDFS ²I=ingokal := Mixed-Case is displayed but not used (like Amiga OFS/FFS) ³G=gokal := Mixed-Case is displayed and used. The filename "test.c" is not equal to "Test.c" or "TEST.C". This may cause problems with amiga-based programs. Ingokal use therefore may cause problems with Unix where gokal filesystems are used. Except for AmiCDROM, AmiCDFS which are PD and AmigaCD (which comes with the V40 packages) all drivers are commercial "pay-ware" and come packed with differnt up-to-date CDs. They have several utilities like Audio-CD- player, SCSI-Inquiry tools, PhotoCD reader etc. Beware the AmigaCD driver. it's rather old and buggy. The better choice is at all times AmiCDROM. The special adaptors for A1200 and A4000 IDE-drives come with a special driver that interfaces the matching device directly. You don't have to buy them seperately. 6.2 Utilities ------------- not yet :-( 7. Combinationes of Computer/Controller/CD-ROM-Drives ===================================================== This list is derived from the List "AmiCDROM works" by Frank Munkert and his AmiCDROM distribution found on Aminet. Amiga Controller CD-ROM drive Driver Comment ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 500 GVP A500-HD+ NEC3Xp(CDR-400) ACD1.11 500 Trumpcard NEC CDR-25 ACD1.7 500 Blizzard Supra 500XP Apple CD300 ACD1.6 500 GVP Series II Toshiba 4101 ACD1.8 500 cdtv.device A570 ACD1.7 *500 A2630 A2091 Toshiba 4101 AW2 *500 A2603 A2091 Toshiba 5201 AW2 1200 1230-II SCSI-Kit Toshiba 4101B ACD1.15 1200 SCSI+ Apple CD300 ACD 1.? 2000 GForce040 Texel DM3024K ACD 1.15 not w/ Texel<1.11 2000 GForce030 Apple PowerCD ACD1.8/9 2000 GForce030 MV CDR-H93MV ACD 1.15 2000 GVP S II V4.13 NEC CDR-55JD ACD1.4 2000 GVP Series II Apple CD-300 ACD1.4 2000 GVP Series I Toshiba 3401 ACD1.8 2000 GVP 030 Sony CDU-561 ACD1.7 2000 GForce040 Toshiba 3401 ACD1.15 2000 Masoboshi MC Toshiba 3401 ACD1.6 2000 ICD Advant 2000 Apple CD150 ACD1.4 2000 A2091 NEC CDR-37 ACD1.12 2000 A2091 NEC CDR-55JD-1 ACD1.4 2000 GVP S II v4.13 NEC CDR-55JD-1 ACD1.7 2000 GVP Series II Apple CD300 ACD1.9 2000 A2091 Toshiba 3301 ACD1.6 2000 A2091 Sony CDU-561 ACD1.7 2000 Evolution 3.x Toshiba 3401 ACD1.4 *2000 DataFlyer Toshiba 4101 AW2 2000 GForce030 Toshiba 4101 ACD1.13 2000 GForce040 Oktagon 2008 Toshiba 4101 ACD1.15 2000 A2630 A2091 Apple CD300 ACD1.4 3000 internal Toshiba 3301 ACD1.7 3000 internal Toshiba 3401 ACD1.9 3000 internal Chinon 435 ACD1.4 3000 internal NEC CDR 84-1 ACD1.4 3000 internal (08) NEC CDR-25 ACD1.15 3000 internal (08) Apple CD150 ACD1.7 3000 internal Apple CD300 ACD1.7 3000 Merc'040 internal (08) Apple CD300 ACD1.7 3000 internal Texel DM5028 ACD1.7 3000 internal NEC 3Xp ACD1.7 3000 internal Pioneer DRM604X ACD1.9 nur teilweise *3000 internal Toshiba 4101 AW2 *3000 internal Toshiba 5201 AW2 *3000 internal (08) NEC 3xi AW2 3000 A2091 Toshiba 21/32 ACD1.7 3000 Emplant w SCSI Apple CD 300 ACD1.7 4000 GVP Series I Toshiba 3401 ACD1.8 4000 A2091 Toshiba 3401 ACD1.7 4000 A2091 Toshiba 4101 ACD1.13 4000 Fastlane Z3 Toshiba 3401 ACD1.2 4000 Fastlane Z3 Apple CD300 ACD1.4/7 4000 A4091 Apple CD300 ACD1.7 4000 WE040/28 Toshiba 3401 ?.? 4000 Golem SCSI Toshiba 3401 ACD1.7 4000 A2091 NEC3Xp ACD1.7 4000 A4091 NEC3Xi ACD1.14 4000 VOB CD-ROM-Kit Mitsumi FX001D ACD1.14 4000 Oktagon 2008 Sanyo CRD-4001 ACD1.14 *4000/030 Oktagon 2008 Apple PowerCD AW2 *4000/030 Oktagon 2008 Toshiba 5201 ACD1.15 w/ recog.-probs 4000/030 DataFlyer Apple SC ACD1.7 *4000/040 A4091 Toshiba 4101 AW2 *4000/040 A4091 Toshiba 5201 AW2 4000/040 Oktagon 2008 Toshiba 3401 ACD1.9 *4000/040 Oktagon 2008 Toshiba 4101 AW2 ???? Oktagon 2008 Teac CD-50 Pioneer DRM600 DRM602 ACD1.10 The following hardware setup is known not to work or to have severe problems: Amiga Controller CD-ROM-Drive Driver Comment ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2000 GVP Series I Toshiba 3401 ACD1.6 2000 GVP S II v4.13 NEC CDR-55JD-1 ACD1.8/9 2000 GVP combo 68030 Toshiba 3401 ACD1.6 2000 GForce030 Toshiba 3401 ACD1.6 2000 ICD Advant 2000 Apple CD150 ACD1.6 2000 Vector Acc Nec 3Xp ACD1.7 3000 EMPLANT Texel DM5024 ACD1.6 3000/040 internal Texel CDROM ACD1.4 3000 internal Apple CD300 ACD1.6 nur teilweise 3000 internal (08) Apple CD150 ACD1.8 *4000 Masoboshi Toshiba 4101 AW2 altes ROM The follwowing harware setup works for some users, for other not. Amiga Controller CD-ROM-Drive Driver Comment ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2000 Evolution3.x Toshiba 3401 ACD1.6/7 maybe only in trackdisk-mode ----- ACD := AmiCDROM AW2 := AsimWare V2 CDX := Xetec CCD := CacheCDFS BCD := BabelCDFS COM := AmigaCDFS (OS3.1) * := I've used this setup myself or saw it working. 8. Audio ======== All mentioned CD-ROM drives support some kind of Audio-CD-Player operation(3.5mm outlet on the front). Some even can be set to work only in this mode and they do not require a host computer for this. You just have to connect the audio outlets on the rear with your Stereo Set or extra Speakers. There is lots of software that emulates a CD-Player on your Amiga. Most commercial drivers have one, but the best are found in the PD area (YACDP 1.2, Jukebox 2.x; both are shareware). Some drives do not support curtain features. So first check the users guide and see what features are supported by your drive and by the software player. (e.g. NEC drives do not support all audio mixer features!) 8.1 Amiga-Audio and CD-AUDIO ---------------------------- Only A4000(T) and the A3000T have internal pin connectors for the audio of the CD-ROM drive. Amiga-sounds and CD-ROM audio are mixed internally. The proportion of amiga/cd-rom tends to the amiga side, so sound f/x can be heard even if cd-sound is playing (for games, multimedia etc.) All other amiga models have to mix the audio externally. Please do not just combine both left and right channels. This is not a very clever move. Both the amiga and the drive circuits can be damaged (and PAULAs are very hard to get in these times :-) On the serial port (on the A2000 on the internal port also) there is a pin called AUDIO-IN. Please do not use this pin! It's initially built for the sound of a modem(!) and just mono mixed to the left channel. Just like the AUDIO-OUT pin which is builr for the output of sound through a modem and comes only from the right channel. So if you want to mix amiga-sound f/x with CD-ROM audio from your drive, use the following schematic to build a little mixer. It works for several people right now, but nether me or the author take any responsibility for damage to your hardware. R1,2 = Stereopoti 50kOhm linear _____ left O------[_____]------O left ^ Amiga +------+ CD-ROM | _____ right O--|---[_____]------O right | ^ | | X¹ X² R3,4 Stereopoti 50kOhm log. | | _____ | +----[_____]--+--O GND | ^ | | +-------+ | | | _____ | +------|----[_____]--+ | ^ | | | | right O¹ O² left to amplifier R1,2 := Balance amiga-sound and CD-ROM-Audio R3,4 := Volume (not really nescessary! The signals O¹, O² for the amplifier can come from X¹, X² also!) GND is just connected between the devices. This may also solve some peoples (including myself) grounding and resonance problems. If the volume drops to much you can reduce the 50kOhm a little (stay above 20kOhm). 8.2 Digital Audio? ------------------ See chapter 3.2 for a list of CD-ROMs that support CDDAviaSCSI or CDDAviaIDE. The following programs enable you to read CDDA over the SCSI bus. At this writing there is no program known to me that can do the trick for the few IDE drives. Program FileSystem Drive ----------------------------------------------------------------- JukeBox 2.x (optional) all drives YACDP 1.2 Toshiba, Sony/APPLE SCSIUtil Toshiba, Sony/APPLE CDDA Toshiba, Sony/APPLE AsimWare 3.4 SCSI-2, Toshiba, Sony/APPLE 9. PhotoCD ========== PhotoCDs are just normal multisession/XA CD-ROMs. The pictures are stored in an special format that includes several resolutions. Real, processed PhotoCDs are golden and have more than one session. At your dealer you can get lots of pre-processed PhotoCDs, these are single-session normal CDs and often include a viewer for DOS/Windows sometimes for Mac and/or CD-I players. To view those pictures on your Amiga you'll need a special program and if you want a little comfort you will have to pay for it. Also since the pictures are TrueColor 24Bit pictures you should have a graphics board or at least an AGA-Amiga and in every case lot of ram. Program ca. price max. resolution ----------------------------------------------------------- PhotoworX ca. 198DM Base*16 PhotoworX pro ca. 299DM Base*64 FolioworX ca. 128DM for PortfolioCD(TIFF) ADpro loader ca. 198DM Base*16 Photogenics ca. 55£ Base ImageFX ca. ? Base*16 ADpro/Asimware PD Base ppm2... PD Base*16 10. Installation hints ====================== 10.1 SCSI --------- Most of the people have difficulties connecting a simple SCSI drive to their amigas. Often because it's so simple and nearly all CD-ROM drive manufacturers do not supply a manual, but rather limited description of jumpers and ports on the housing. But there is nothing mysterious: simply connect the power and the scsi-cable to the device. Prior to that you should find a free ID on you scsi bus (CD-ROMs normally take ID 2 or 3). If your drive is the last one on the bus, do not remove the terminator resistor packs, but remove them from the former last drive. if you mount it somewehre in- between remove them. Only one device may be terminated on the bus at a time. All these guidelines should be found also in your SCSI- controllers manual. To physicaly mount your device you need a 5.25" drive bay in your Amiga. Currently only the A2000, the A3000T and the A4000(T) do have such bays. All other models need a external housing for the drive. Please note that all CD drives with drawers can only be mounted in a horizontal position else the disk will fall out of the carrier. Drives with a caddy may be operated horizontally and vertically. The drive is not visible in hard disk tools like the HDToolbox. It's "not a disk type 5" which means a fixed medium type device. To check if your drive is there use some kind of scsi inquiry tool, scsi mounter or similar. (Note: The Toshiba 3401 does not like synchronous transfers initiated by the host. Clear the appropriate flags!) To access it, install the device driver kit you have chosen. This will mount the CD-ROM drive for you and AmigaOS will recognise it as a read-only-device. After the physical mounting the driver will do the logical mount to the operating system. All you do is start the installing routine and enter scsi-device ("scsi.device", "gvpscsi.device" etc.) and the CD-ROM drive's ID (default 2) on the bus. Leave the rest to the defaults of your software. All known filing systems install a handler in L: and a CD0: icon in DEVS:DOSDrivers. It's common sense to name the CD-ROMs CD0:, CD1: etc. so stick to it. After you reboot you should see a CD0: icon on your workbench screen - of course you must insert some CD first. 10.2 AT-Bus/IDE --------------- Because you can not connect a standard IDE CD-ROM drive directly to the Amiga you'll need some kind of interface (VOB CD-ROM Kit e.a.). These kits come with detailed installation guidelines so all I can say is: be careful, read it twice and then try it. All additional tips and tricks are of course welcome, send them to me. For the software it is common to emulate a fake scsi.device with limited ID support. So your CD-ROM drive may have unit 2 fixed. But all Kits come with their own filing system... 10.3 Utilities -------------- All Utilities that are not related to the filing system itself or that are not installed during the setup of the filing system, again need the scsi-device ("scsi.device", "gvpscsi.device" etc.) and the ID of your drive. Only the new YACDP 1.2 features some kind of automatic search for the first CD-ROM on the first found scsi-compliant device (compared to an internal list). So look in the documentation where to setup device and unit settings. The audio-players support many features but not all drives do. So first check in the players documentation if your special drive as able to do all the things the player offers. (e.g. NEC drives do not offer all kinds of the audio mixer modes available in the "jukebox") CDDAviaSCSI is supported only for few drives, even if your drive can transfer CDDA, the player may not be able to read it since your drive uses a different access method. NEC is one of that drive type. 11. CDs for other plattforms ============================ ---------------------------- 11.1 Magazines -------------- If you are looking at a CD published by a dedicated Amiga magazine, so- called cover-CDs, okay. But all other magazines piublish PC or MAC CDs with special software for retrieval. Of some use may be Disks with Fonts, Pictures, Clips etc. But take care that they are in a format, that your application understands or where you can get a converter for. 11.2 special PC CDs ------------------- Be carefull! Most of the CDs are published by DOS, Windows, OS\2 or Macintosh magazines. They use propriatary formats for their data and the retrieval programs only run on a special OS. If you're looking for pictures, anims, clips you may get lucky, but all of the new multimedia CDs are not for you. Go, buy a PC :-( Sometimes you can get even in our days a simple HighSierra processed CD, this kind of filing system is not readable on several CDFS'. 11.3 PC emulations ------------------ You may connect a CD-ROM to a bridgeboard in your amiga, but there is no software to access this drive from the amiga side, so the drive sticks to the bridgebaord only. (The same is it with a drive on the amiga!) I do not have any information about the PC Modul for the Emplant board, sorry. There is a new alternative for you: PC-Task 3. The program emulates a 80286 processor and so you can run at least Windows 3.1. But beware the "gigantic" requirements of PC-Task (lots of ram, GfxBoard for VGA, fast 68k processor etc.) It offers a special driver to access a CD-ROM connected to the amiga. Be aware that large anaimations, videos etc. will not work, they expect more from a PC than PC-Task can offer. But, you can access several databanks, multimedia applications and such things. But I know at least one applications that plays dirty tricks with the CD-driver and this does not work with PCTask. Also PCTask has severe problems with some SCSI-Controllers (Dataflyer, Masoboshi, Squirrel) and comes up only with a DOS error message "No HS or ISO format" 11.4 Macintosh emulations ------------------------- Emplant: Emplant supports SCSI(!) CD-ROMs trought its own controller, via Amiga SCSI controller and non-SCSI CD-ROMs via the empcd.device that then emulates a CD as removeable. ShapeShifter: ShapeShifter comes with buildin support for CD-ROM drives such as transforming evary SCSI drive into an Apple CD-300, which can be accessed via the Apple CD-ROM extensions/drivers. Thrid party toolkits such as FWBs work with every drive when the trasnformation is disabled. Also ATAI drives are supported via the empcd.device as removeables. 11.5 Data formats ----------------- Format Amiga-program --------------------------------------------------------- BMP, GIF, JPG, PCX, TIFF, SUN, VOC, WAV Datatype, ADpro, ImageFX, Scala MM400, Xv FLI/FLC MainActor, ADpro, ImageFX, ImageMaster, Scala MM400 AVI MainActor, Xv DL MainActor, Xv GL ImageFX, Xv PhotoCD PhotoworX (pro), Asimware, ImageFX, PBM, Scala MM400 MPEG special Hardware or real slow VideoCD special Hardware EB¹ ShapeShifter (MacOS: PaperOut) ¹Sony announced that they will discontinue the EB format and the production of disks/readers for it! 11.5 MPEG, FULL Motion Video --------------------------- Theses VideoCDs can only be played by special cards like the FMV-module for the CD³² or a MPEG video card like PEGGY. On several PD-places you find software MPEG-players, but be warned, even 040 CPUs have difficulties showing them. 12. CD32-Games ============== If you're planning to use one of the many CD³² games disk on your A1200 or A4000 please note that one or all of the following restrictions may even apply with the use of a "CD³²-Emulator" for you computer. ·Only with AGA amigas A1200/A4000 ·Better chance if the games is also available for normal Amigas. They use less special features of the CD³² ·Some Games depend on the multi-button joypad. Honeybee sells it seperatly. The original CD³² pad sometimes has difficulties on the A1200 ·CD³² has build in chunky-to-planar conversion. There is a software to do this, but this is only fast enough on 68040 machines. ·Some early games don't like keyboards or more than 2MB of RAM. The different CD³² emulators do more or less a degration of your system and an emulation of C2P and the missing joypad. But the most advanced feature, the mixing of CD-audio and amiga-audio is only possible if your drive is some kind of SCSI-2 compatible (if ist the drive itself or the controlling device is does not matter). Drives missing this features (like NEC e.a.) do have difficulties producing the right sound F/X. The CD³² has a build in CDTV-emulation that executes most of the CDs mastered for this device. All known CD³² emulators for AGA Amigas do not have this feature and therefore are not able to execute CDTV-stuff. You probably have no chance on getting such old titles on the market. 13. CD+G ======== Pop-Music Titel Number Artist Titel Label ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 81943 Alphaville Breathtaking Blue Atlantic 82086 Laura Branigan Atlantic 26023 Ella Fitzgerald Things ain't what they... Sire 25948 Flamin' Groovies Groovies Greatest Grooves Sire 26111 Fleetwood Mac Behind the Mask Warner Bros. 2284 Emmylou Harris Pieces of Sky Reprise 2276 Jimi Hendrix Smash Hits Reprise 25691 Information Society Tommy Boy 26156 Chris Isaak Silvertone Warner Bros. 26163 Little Feat Representing the Mambo Warner Bros. 3538 Little Feat Hoy Hoy Warner Bros. 26108 Gram Parsons Grevious Angel Warner Bros. 25968 Van Dyke Parks Tokyo Rose Warner Bros. 3630 Bonnie Rait Green Light Warner Bros. 25486 Bonnie Rait Nine Lives Warner Bros. 25829 Lou Reed New York Sire 26036 Woody Guthrie Tribute Warner Bros. CD+G Classic by Warner Bros. Number Composer Titel Artist -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15010 Bach St. Mathew Passion Concertgebouw Orchestra & Chorus, Amsterdam Highlights - Nikolaus Harnoncourt 15031 Beethoven Diabelli Variations Rudolf Buchbinder 15011 Beethoven String Quartet #14 Vermeer Quartet 15008 Beethoven Symphony No. 7 Berlin Philharmonic Joseph Keilberth 15009 Beethoven/Liszt Cyprien Katsaris Piano Symphony No. 9 (Piano) 15015 Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique Wiener Symphoniker Georges Pretre 15004 Bruckner Symphony No. 9 Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra Eliahu Inbal 15014 Placido Domingo Orchestra of the German Opera, Berlin Belcanto Domingo Nello Santi 15030 Handel The Messiah Concentus Muskus, Vienna Highlights - Chamber Choir of Stockholm Nikolaus Harnoncourt 15001 Holst The Planets New York Philharmonic Zubin Mehta 15007 Mahler Symphony No. 5 New York Philharmonic Zubin Mehta 15029 Mendelssohn Symphony No. 2 Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig Kurt Masur 15003 Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig Kurt Masur 15013 Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4 Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig Kurt Masur 15006 Mozart The Abduction from the Seraglio Mozart Ochestra and Choir of the Zurich Opera Nikolaus Harnoncourt 15012 Mozart The Magic Flute Mozart Ochestra and Choir of the Zurich Opera Nikolaus Harnoncourt 15028 Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf Sir John Gielgud Academy of London Richard Stamp 15005 Purcell Dido and Aeneas Concentus Muskus, Vienna Nikolaus Harnoncourt Arnold Schonberg Chior 14. Misc ======== 14.1 CD-Write ------------- There is a program called CD-Write. As the name may falsely suggest, the program can not write to a CD, this is physically impossible. But the disk is mounted through a special filesystem enhancer that redirects write attemts to a buffer on your harddisks. If you read from the CD the file(s) in the buffer are first searched, and then the real CD. So through the eyes of this new device it looks like you can suddenly write to your CD-ROM drive. Be carefull, in extreme conditions the buffer can grow to a full 700MB in size! 14.2 Accessing CDs in a BBS --------------------------- Due to the special nature of the CDs as read-only media, it is often not possible to access one from a BBS. If you open a directory for public use, normally the BBS persists of writing several service files to that location. This opviously does not work for a CD. Only CD-Write can be at help for an unwilling BBS program. But every modern BBS has an option to access a CD, even better if the CD is "BBS-Ready" and allready carries FILES.BBS files. A. Glossar ========== AT-Bus, IDE-connector := This often complies to the proprietary connectors from three different drive manufactures: Mitsumi, Sony and Panasonic. These connectors are not real IDE connectors and all the drives requier a special controller either on a seperate card or on a sound-card. Only the Mitsumi-style connector is supported on amigas. Note that these connector have nothing to do with the harddisk interface of the same name! EIDE := EIDE or better ATAPI describes the change from the propriertary connectors to real IDE-style conectors. Since the ATAPI command set is a feature of EIDE anyway they are often refered to as EIDE drives, but they're not. So there is a little shift in naming conventions: Type harddisk CD-ROM drive ------------------------------------------------ IDE IDE Mitsumi, Sony, Panasonic EIDE EIDE IDE(ATAPI) High-Sierra := first draft of a standard with FAT 8+3 naming and limited directory-struture. ISO-9660 := High-Sierra draft with minimal changes. XA := the XA-standard has new sector formats including audio- and data-sectors to interleave. In a normal CD-ROM mode it saves 2048 bytes (form-1) and 2336 bytes (form-2) of data. The XA (Extended Architecture) format saves in a differing method in form-1 2048 bytes, in form-2 2324 bytes of data. RRIP := »Rock Ridge Interchange Protocol«, fully downward compatible to ISO 9660. It offers support for the extended features of other files-systems then DOS (long filenames, more flags, deeper directory-structure, object-links) MultiSession := PhotoCDs are not written in a single shot, but in several sessions. Each of this sessions has a "lead-in" (that includes the directory), the data and a "lead-out". The next sessions contains the directory of all prevous sessions plus the current session, then the data and the "lead out". If your drive can not read multi-session CDs it stops searching after the first "lead-out", so you can read the first, but not the following sessions and their data. This applies only to the "golden" Write-Once CDs, commercial PhotoCDs are just normal, single-sessions CDs. (NOTE: the handling for the multi-sessions is different. Only two drive melt the sessions internally to one, big session (Texel/Plextor x024 and x028). Toshiba offers a special command to access the last session (and its directory), others leave it to the driver to combine the sessions for the file-system.) EB := Electronic Book format. Developped by Sony and propagated for 8cm "single" CDs that carry normal lexica, thesauri and speel checker databases upto real books like Goethe. The CD was written in normal XA-format, but the book-files can only be read in a special sony-build EB reader or through special Software (e.g. PaperOut for Macintosh). The format was discontiued and abandonned in summer 1995. B. Legal Stuff: --------------- The stuff in this FAQ is based simply on my own knowledge. Firms and product names are used freely, but are the property of their owners. I live in germany and therefore have little knowledge about the other markets. So if I'm missing something please drop me a note! KLAATU@NEWSWIRE.GUN.DE Joachim E. Deußen Commercial products can be found in your local amiga store or by mail-order. Look in your favorite magazine for availability and current pricing. PD stuff can be found on FreshFish or the Aminet. Feel free to publish this FAQ on any electronic medium, on disk, CD or via BBS and the internet. If you quote, please leave a hint where to get the whole document. CDROM.FAQ - Copyright © 1994-96 by Joachim E. Deußen C. Extensions and corrections: ------------------------------ technical info: J.LILIENBORN@AMTRASH.comlink.de (Juergen Lilienborn) hints: fjrei@kbsaar.saar.de (Franz-Josef Reichert) Audio-Mix: Th.Stephan@KDS.ZER.SUB.ORG (Thomas Stephan) PhotoworX: olsen@sourcery.han.de (Olaf "Olsen" Barthel) AmiCDROM: ln_fmu@pki-nbg.philips.de (Frank Munkert) (anyone with a valid EMAIL?) CD32-Games: Nemesis@Insider.sub.de (R. Geiger) KGB@Mountain.RHEIN-RUHR.de (K. Goertz) Driver: rbabel@babylon.pfm-mainz.de (R. Babel) A special thanx for checking the first english translation goes to: walaj@essex.ac.uk (Jonathan Waland) D. How to get it: ----------------- Aminet: docs/help EMAIL: KLAATU@NEWSWIRE.GUN.DE