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From: csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Claus Brod )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ATARI CDAR504 CD ROM PLAYER
Keywords: CDAR504 CD-Rom Player
Message-ID: <2963@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Date: 6 Jul 90 12:09:04 GMT
References: <1956@lzsc.ATT.COM>
Organization: CSD, University of Erlangen, W-Germany
Lines: 51

hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) writes:

>I bought one of these beasties, to see what it would do.

>1. I tried it on a Music CD.  The CDAR504 plays them.  There is even a
>	DA to allow cataloging the tracks of multiple CD's.  NEAT!
An official DA from ATARI? Why didn't I see that all the time?

>2. There are no native ATARI CD's yet.  (Or least, I don't have access
>	to one).  So no comment on their use.
The German software company MAXON collaborated with ATARI Germany and
Bertelsmann in producing a CD-ROM containing nearly 200 PD disks. This
CD comes with every CDAR504 in Germany; at least that's what ATARI
says when I checked the situation some months ago.

There's also been a demo CD with some demo software from several German
software companies that had been produced for the 1988 ATARI fair in
Duesseldorf.

>	The CD's may be opened from the desktop and files accessed, read,
>	copied, and the like, without limitation.  Of course it is hard
>	to copy a file of 200 million bytes to something else.  The real
>	problem is that most of the data is compressed and is meant to be
>	read with a program supplied in the directory structure of the 
>	CD rom.  If the program had been native for an ATARI it would 
>	surely work.  Unfortunately, the programs are for IBM PC's.

Rumours say that there is a software package from a Dutch company
that allows some of those DOS CD data to be retrieved on the ST.
I think they said something about CDs that can be viewed under DOS
with the Microsoft Bookshelf environment.
>4. I modified PC-Ditto I (a true emulator) to interface to MSCDEX and 
>	permit accessing the CDAR504.  Now I can access the whole disk
>	and display the encoded information.  It is copyable also.
>	
Neat hack! Several readers of my book asked me for something like
that. Would you like posting it? How did you do it?

>	speeches describing how great the CD is.  These tracks play on
>	my Sony CD player; NOT on the CDAR504.  TROUBLE here!!

Right. The CDAR504 can _not_ handle CDs with combined music and data.
I tried with an early firmware version and made suggestions to ATARI in
order to change that. (Not very difficult, I think.) Is Mr Schmal listening?
What's the current firmware version?

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Claus Brod, Am Felsenkeller 2,			Things. Take. Time.
D-8772 Marktheidenfeld, West Germany		(Piet Hein)
csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
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