Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!seismo!hal!stevem
From: stevem@hal.CSS.GOV (Steve Masters)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Is CDTV CD ROM drive compatible?
Message-ID: <494@hal.CSS.GOV>
Date: 12 Dec 90 13:49:18 GMT
References: <90344.151536IO00844@MAINE.BITNET> <90345.021910R38@psuvm.psu.edu> <94076@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Organization: ENSCO Inc., Melbourne FL
Lines: 35

huebner@aero.aero.org (Robert E. Huebner) writes:

>In article <90345.021910R38@psuvm.psu.edu>, R38@psuvm.psu.edu (Me!!) writes:
>|> CDTV is compatible with CDROMs that are of the ISO-9660 standard
>|> format.  Look for that designation on the label.

>Of course, by saying this you give the impression that I can go out and
>purchase any old ISO-9660 or High Sierra format CD (CDTV supports both,
>so does the Xetex, I believe) and pop it in.  This is not true unless
>you have proper retrieval software to get the information off the disk and
>display/execute it.

>My impression of this is- its sort of like putting an MS-DOS disk in your
>Amiga using MSH:  Sure, you can see the filenames, but without additional
>software you cannot view the GIFs or execute a program.

BUT....If the file on the CD-ROM was in GIF format, and you had an Amiga-specific
CD-ROM reader with the device driver (e.g. Xetec's(sp?) new reader), could you
read the data off of the ISO-9960 CD-ROM into your favorite GIF processing program???

In other words, does the CD-ROM look like any other file system to the user, or is 
there the likelihood of furthur encoding that you must deal with in addition to the
ISO-9960/High Sierra standards?   This is important, since there are CD-ROM databases
available which come with IBM-PC retrieval software, but the DATA is (supposedly) on
the disc in ASCII characters.  If the files appear and can be handled like any other
file system, I should be able to access the data with my own C, AREXX, or (sorry) BASIC
programs.

BTW, has anyone actually bought and tried out Xetec's CD-ROM reader?


Steve Masters   stevem@hal.CSS.GOV
ENSCO, Inc.
Melbourne, FL  32940
(407) 254 4122