#1 CDROM for PCs & Macs
6 messages in this thread
To:
If you want to put huge amounts of text data on a CD and would like to work
with this data on both a PC and a Mac (using text retrieval software): do
you have to store your date twice on the CD (DOS & Mac format)?
Greetings,
Friedrich Barleben
No. The ISO9660 format allows your data to be cross-platfom compatible.
However, if you want all your nifty custom mac icons, then it's a different
story. ISO uses the generic mac icons. Nimbus (and most other mastering
facilities) can do a "hybrid" disc that has HFS and ISO on the same disc.
That way, the IBMers can't see the mac data and the Mac guys don't see the
PC stuff. We also do trihydrid and quadhybrid (UNIX and AMIGA added).
There's no reason though, data can't be shared equally by all platfoms if
ISO9660 standards are adhered to.
Ernie,
Are there any special things we'll need to look out for in making a
'quad' disk? We're primarily Amiga developers, but certainly wouldn't want
to make the disk ONLY useable on that platform.
Yes. There are things you need to be aware of. Nimbus' CD-ROMs can hold
730MB reliably assuming the reader can read out that far. For practicality
and most compatibility across readers, I'd suggest a rounded 700MB size CD.
Now that 700MB has been established, you'll have to divide it up for the
number of platforms you want on the CD equally. If DOS and MAC then the
maximum size of each platform respectively should be 350MB. Add the Amiga,
then divide 700MB by 3 and get apprx. 233MB per platform, add UNIX, Atari,
whatever and divide by 4 resulting in 175MB capacity per platform. The
only other consideration is the time factor in recieving your finished CD.
It does take longer (maybe 10 to 15 days) to "build" the CD. Oh, there is
no extra charge whatsoever in doing a multi-platform (hybrid) CD.
Friedrich,
The answer is _probably_ yes. I believe there is Mac software out
there that can read ISO 9660 disks, but whether it will also do the job you
want is a different question.
By the way, can you recomend a good Mac text retrieval package?
Frank
Not yet, Frank, but that is something I am very interested in, too…
Friedrich