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From: nraoaoc@nmt.edu (NRAO Array Operations Center)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: CD-ROM for the Amiga
Summary: CD-Rom databases seem to all be the same
Keywords: CD-ROM, databases
Message-ID: <1990Aug13.060050.13498@nmt.edu>
Date: 13 Aug 90 06:00:50 GMT
References: <140444@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <7741@gollum.twg.com>
Reply-To: ppalmer@nrao.edu (NRAO Array Operations Center)
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
Lines: 27

In article <7741@gollum.twg.com> david@twg.com (David S. Herron) writes:
>In article <140444@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@stpeter.Eng.Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes:
>>The question is, is there a market for these things on the Amiga? They 
>>have a scsi connector and talk SCSI, the Sun CD's are in High Sierra
>>format (as are most I understand). The question is, if there was an
>>Amiga driver for this guy would you consider buying one? 
>
>If that's the same format as the Oxford English Dictionary disk
>(and for that matter, all the other CD ROM's out there for IBM-PC's)
>then 
>
>	**YES**!


Chuck raises a very good point, but one thing many people do not seem
to be aware of is that most CD-ROM databases are the same for IBM-PC,
Sun, or Mac's.  That is you can take the same CD-ROM disk of a NASA
X-ray source catalog, or of an EPA (or whichever federal agency)
catalog of hazardous materials, (to name two that I have looked at),
and read it on the Sparc Stations, the PC's or the Mac's here at the
observatory.  The software on the individual systems is different, of
course -  the quality of sotware in descending order is Sun -> MacII
-> PC - but one uses the same data disk.

However, the readers are expensive, hence Chuck's point about the cost.

Pat Palmer (email: ppalmer@nrao.edu)