This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (66 messages)
Manhole DOS/Windows CD Enhanced should be available at PC Connection and other mail order houses. If you can't find it, try calling 1- 800 477 3650. Enjoy. William Volk
Our title "The Manhole Enhanced CD-ROM" for MPC and DOS, features switchable Japanese and English text and speech. You can select the text or speech independently. Very suitable for pre-school. William Volk
That's interesting about Microsoft's Cinemania. I thought that it was one of the finer titles to come out on CD. I sure that the errors can be fixed eventually, but everyone I've talked to likes this title. On another topic…. I don't know about the rest of the CD-ROM world,…
So true. The computer people get impressed by "The Singing Horse" all too often. (Nevermimd how badly the horse sings). That's why the focus has to be on what Interactivity brings to the table, not just getting closer to VHS quality (though this is also important).
#In House CD-ROM One-Offs
Message #46790
What experence do people have with the one-off CD-ROM creation systems. In particular I'm looking for systems that will… 1. Create 74Min Mixed Mode discs. 2. Support ISO 9660 and Mac HFS. 3. Support Multisession Discs. 4. Use double speed writes. 5. Can be used to read CD's as well…
I beieve that a Photo CD Multisession Drive with support for CD-ROM XA would cover most of the basis …. unless of course something else happens. Also double speed is a good idea. William Volk
You might want to cheack out the Feb. Issue of Computer Gaming World. In particular there's a good story on the making of our latest project (The Return To Zork), which involved talent from the local film and television industry. William Volk
Thanks, I believe you are right about QuickTopix. Sine I've done alot of work with OMI … they will probabilly get my order. The Apple system sounds interesting, if they support ISO9660 and Red-Book Audio. William Volk
I'd rather generate the ISO discs via. the Mac …. if possible, do any of these packages support this? Also what about red-book audio? William Volk
I hope the Sega CD-ROM system does well. If it has any problems, it's mainly the cost of developing for the system and the color palette limitations. But if it gets good titles, that won't matter. William Volk
>if they'd add the ability to also hook the player up as a CD-ROM drive via >SCSI to any computer, it'd sell like hotcakes to those of us who're always >looking for an excuse to get something new I think the new Turbo Technologies Video Game CD does just that.…
>Weren't its video modes derived from VGA? Isn't it true that ported titles >have to be adjusted for the severe TV overscan and lower res? Was VIS >designed by a company with broad experience in digital TV chips? Woof 🙂 Most of the MS-DOS home software titles were written for…
Nintendo proved that the consumer doesn't give a hoot about what's inside of the box. It's what happens when they turn the box on that counts. Price plays no small role as well… The VIS' choice of hardware is based on getting publishers to produce titles for the platform. As…
>I'd say that most CD-I titles are written from scratch to take advantage of >its features. The same should be done for VIS titles to take best advantage >of its features (and for, of course, the totally different end user >environment). The "Home Software" market, on the PC, has been…
I'll concur with the VIS performance figures. We ran some digital video stuff on the VIS and it matched my 25MHz 386 system. Nice SVideo signal as well.. William Volk
The VIS has been under development for quite some time…. William Volk
Is CD-I a dying format?
Message #29171
>I see VIS, from what little I know, as a parallel medium, since it utilizes >computers, as opposed to CD-I, which uses the ubiquitous TV. It would be difficult for a consumer to tell the systems apart. The VIS box looks like the CD-I box which looks like the CDTV…
However, it's my understanding the Photo CD supports Red-Book audio only. Am I wrong? William Volk
Thanks. I've allways felt that the original premise of CD-I "A single media standard" was a good goal. I believe had CD-I been released in '88 (as originally planned), that it would have had a clean shot at that standard. Of course the showing of DV-I at the CD-ROM conference…
#Philips Portable CD-XA
Message #29078
There are so many platforms under consideration by the consumer electronics companies that it's quite a interesting situation. Time will tell… William Volk
The Speech Thing is hardware, the text to speech stuff is software and will work on various cards. William Volk
#27807-
#COVOX SPEECH THING
Message #27816
The Covox Speech Thing(tm) connects to the printer port of the PC. It's easy to install and provides good quality output. William Volk
I don't believe there is a horozontal blank interrupt. I have heard that you can fake it via. timer interrupts and a phase-lock-loop to trigger the palette change. However you can't even modify 256 colors during vertical blank fast enough, most VGA cards "farkle" when you do this (direct register…
RE: BakupWiz Software Thank you oh kind sir… Please send information to: William Volk Activision 11440 San Vicente Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90049 FAX: 310 820 6131 I don't need network backup, only a single machine system… Thanks Again.
#8mm Tape Backup for PC
Message #20792
Problem: I have a Exibyte 8mm tape backup system connected via. SCSI to my PC using a ASPI (Advanced SCSI Protocal Interface) complient interface card. This tape drive when connected to the Mac, performs in a flawless manner. The PC tape backup software I'm using, TAPEMATE, has enough problems to…
Thanks… William Volk
#20563-
#Amiga CD-ROM Follow-up
Message #20588
I recieved documentation that mentions the ISO format change, than details all of the Amiga extensions to deal with the CD… What I don't have is instructions suitable for a pre-mastering house, i.e. exactly what goes into the ISO directory. William Volk
#20539-
Amiga CD-ROM Follow-up
Message #20587
So other than retaining the Amiga file names somehow in the ISO format, there's no other difference in the format from ISO? Thanks, William Volk
#19872-
Sherlock Holmes CD-ROM
Message #19956
It's 15 Megabytes of Hard Disk. I hope the product does well enough to finance the CD-ROM version. William Volk
Gee, that would be reveling an unreleased product. All I can say is that it's a text application(s). William Volk
Thanks. That's a good contact. When is your article coming out? William Volk
No, in the case of this application(s) the Amiga programs are opening data files that exceed the capacity of MS-DOS file names. Since the pre-press wants MS-DOS files, I had to provide a "name map" so the file names could have their proper, original Amiga names. William Volk
The Disk.info could be alot more complicated. I'd need to get details on the format of the Disk.info file itself. William Volk
I intend to have an Amiga directory and an Amiga.info file in the root of the disc. The Amiga directory will contaion all the proper .info files as well as the Amiga executables. I have to supply the data to the pre-press on MS-DOS disks, but I'm providing a list…
The problem is that there are Amiga, Mac, and PC files and applications to be placed onto the disc. In the case of the Amiga stuff, the file names have to be Amiga names … else the Amiga applications won't see them. So I was planning on setting up the…
#Creating Amiga CD-ROM
Message #22228
I'm creating an ISO 9660 CD-ROM that I want to be accessible to Amigas. Besides placing the .info files into the proper ISO directories, is there any other special files the the Amiga CD-ROM requires. Is there a special requirement for tagging Amiga programs in a ISO disc? This is…
Where's this published? (The fast CRC).
Mixed Up Mother Goose doesn't execute the same MSCDEX commands that The Manhole does…. In Manhole all music and audio come from the CD-Audio tracks (except for when you play the piano), in Mother Goose music comes from the music card. You should call Mediavision, they do have the Manhole…
Let me know what drive you have etc.. Manhole CD's been out since Oct. '90 and strictly conforms to MSCDEX. It has almost 100 audio tracks, unfortunitly some of the drivers out there don't execute the audio status command and/or the get table of contents stuff correctly in this situation.…
You'll need a driver that impliments the AudioStatus command as per. the Microsoft specification. Have MediaVision give me a call, if they have any questions about it… Meanwhile (if you can) turn off music/sound (in Manhole) and see what happens…. Sorry for the problem, William Volk
The FM Towns version and the DOS VGA CD-ROM versions are very simular, but the DOS VGA stuff has these neat dissolve-wipe style of effects. I'll talk to marketing about the issue of "where to find" this stuff… William Volk
#16968-
Manhole
Message #16990
We have a test program that will pinpoint the MSCDEX problem that Manhole is having. Manhole DOS CD-ROM uses alot of the CD-Audio commands. Typical problems involve the AudioStatus command and the Pause/Stop command. AudioStatus returns a pause bit and start/end addresses of the current audio segment. The problem is…
I believe that the new 3.5" MO drives from Sony and IBM support the use of a 128MB MO disc and a 122MB optical read-only disc (O-ROM). In both cases the performance is higher than CD-ROM. The advantage of supporting the "Optical-ROM" is that MO discs cost too much for…
I'm talking about costs to the publisher. CD's cost from $1.00 to $2.00 apiece. William Volk
Take a look at Sony's Data Discman's "discs".
I'm no fan of caddies. I know of at least 3 CD systems that don't have caddies (NEC, Fujitsu FM Towns, and Tandy). What I do like is the approach used on the Sony Data Discman, create a 3.5" like disc case. The trouble with traditional CD Caddies is they…
Tom, What do you see as the future for XA in relation to Microsoft's MPC platform standard. I.E. Will we see a MPC XA???? Thanks, William Volk (yes I'm still at Activision). There is 1 Reply.
You've really hit the key points. I'll just add that the real money to made in CD-ROM software is when you can sell discs for less than $30.00 (heck less than $15.00) to a market encompassing millions of easy to use players that cost as close to the price of…
If you take your argument to the extreame, the biggest OS in your or any area in the US is running on the 6502….. it's called Nintendo…. William Volk
Excellent points. It's so easy to say "But we have better hardware", but without a base of recognized "heat-shrink" products, the system doesn't compete. Commodore has 2 areas where they can compete: 1. Home (entertainment) PC's… 2. Video PC's for video production. In Europe most of the disk based entertainment…
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