Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:45467 comp.protocols.appletalk:2855 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!think!ames!coherent!dplatt From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.protocols.appletalk Subject: Re: Appletalk CD-ROM access Message-ID: <43682@improper.coherent.com> Date: 4 Jan 90 18:33:42 GMT References: <1990Jan2.151626.7868@aucs.uucp> Reply-To: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) Followup-To: comp.sys.mac Distribution: na Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA Lines: 68 In article <1990Jan2.151626.7868@aucs.uucp> paul@aucs.UUCP (Paul Steele) writes: > The boss wants to a CD-ROM service on our Appletalk network so that > users can access a networked shareable CD-ROM player over the network. > Is there any way to accomplish this sort of thing in a Mac/Appletalk > environment. This should not be difficult. Attach a CD-ROM player to one Mac on your network. Install copies of TOPS or an equivalent on this Mac, and on each Mac that you wish to permit to have access to the CD-ROM. Configure the "server" Mac so that the CD-ROM is mounted at boot time, and is then published as a read-only volume by TOPS. > We would rather not have to dedicate a Mac to the service, > but if its necessary then we will. I don't think you'll _have_ to dedicate a Mac as a server. However, you should place the CD-ROM drive on a machine that is not used heavily, or for time-critical functions. CD-ROM access is slow, and the Mac acting as a server will be locked up during I/O to the drive. If you're expecting heavy use of the CD-ROM drive, you should dedicate a Mac Plus (or a similar low-end machine) as a server... and turn the size of the RAM cache up! > We do provide such a service to > our Novell PC users, but that CD-ROM is not available to the Appletalk > network. The PC CD-ROM player also holds upto 4 CD's at a time, which > is something we would like on the Mac side as well. I have not seen any Mac-compatible CD-ROMs with jukebox capabilities, nor any CD-ROM driver that would take advantage of same. > Any information on this subject would be greatly appreciated. If you're serious about providing CD-ROM service over the net, you should be careful to select a fast CD-ROM drive... otherwise, people aren't going to be happy with the throughput. Unfortunately, Apple's CD SC drive isn't very fast, as CD-ROM drives go. By the standards of the drives coming on the market today, it's rather slow. I recently purchased a Toshiba XM-3201 CD-ROM drive... average access time is in the 400 millisecond range. Toshiba says it's [one of] the fastest CD-ROM drives on the market. I can't say as to that... but it feels much snappier than the Apple CD SC I played with for a while last year. I've found that AppleShare is _not_ a good mechanism for providing network access to a CD-ROM. AppleShare's "Desktop Manager" doesn't get along very well with large, read-only volumes which were built in a non-Desktop-Manager environment. If a CD-ROM (for example) has a normal HFS "Desktop" file, but does not have the Desktop Manager database files, the Finder will be unable to access it if the Desktop Manager is installed, and the CD-ROM will be declared to be unmountable. I believe that TOPS would not have this problem, since TOPS does not include the Desktop Manager. I'm not sure about IPT's AppleShare-compatible server package (PSN, I think?). A note on all of the above... what I've said applies to mounting and publishing a CD-ROM which was mastered as an HFS disk volume. I'm not sure what will happen if you attempt to mount/publish a High Sierra or ISO 9660 CD-ROM. Since these volumes do not have Desktop files, TOPS clients may be unable to use them. -- Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 493-8805 UUCP: ...!{ames,apple,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303