CD-Rom Yeah Right
30 messages in this thread
One reason it would be of interest is that (for a while at least) it's
gonna be VERY difficult (and expensive) to steal ('pirate', for those who
_insist_ on euphamisms) stuff which takes up a bunch of space on a CD-ROM.
Not many people have access to 600mb+ disk drives and even fewer can
'write' a CD-ROM.
Since stealing seems to be costing the entertainment software business a
fair amount of money, I'm sure that game publishers would LOVE it. And we
(who are only casually interested in games (yeah sure….only casually))
will probably get better looking and more complex games as the CD-ROM
readers become more readily available.
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.
Vic,
But how many games are comprised of 600 Meg of code/data? So while
the disk may be able to accept that much…I suspect the vast majority of
them will be 90% empty.
Of course…for interactive video….that could take the major
portion of the disk.
Don
Having 600 megs at your disposal would be quite tempting, no? Think of it
as a big, slow floppy; instead of limiting yourself to what you can ship on
a 880K floppy. I know this sort of mindset creeps into designer's minds.
For example, if your application does a complex time-consuming calculation
that could be solved by a single seek into a LARGE look-up table, you've
got room to store it. Or if your application would benefit from 128
different lookup tables, you've got them. Suddenly 600 meg doesn't seem so
big. I know I could fill one, fast.
Now you're talking a WORM drive, the CD-ROM stuff that is more common is
Read Only Memory, not Write Once, Read Many. So how do you intend to filla
CD full of data with a CD-ROM drive? You'll need a worm drive for that
Paul:
There are a whole bunch of people who have some very interesting data
that would fill a CD-ROM. Those people are called the government and most
of the data is in ASCII format. This includes loads of data about
geography, the environment, the economy, the census, agriculture,
sociology, medicine, history, etc., etc., etc.
The process of getting this data onto CD-ROM format has a LARGE number
of institutional hurdles. Once those hurdles are cleared, the cost of the
CD-ROM disk is usually quite low (I purchased a CD-ROM of geography data
files for $12.50; I had no way to read and use the data, but it made me
feel good to hold the disk of mapping data for most of the U.S.). A large
part of that data is being secured by private companies who massage it
slightly, encode it, and provide a small reader program at a substantial
cost ($1200 is not unusual).
Hopefully, as time goes on, more government agencies will release their
data on CD-ROM's, and more computer platforms will develop CD-ROM drivers,
and small text searching software. Then, you will find out just how much
information your computer can really give you access to at a modest cost.
Bill, where did you get that disk? I could use that kind of data for a
'proof of concept' thing I'm working on ('course I'd have to get a
drive…then a driver..then decode the data…but what the heck, isn't that
what programmers do??)
I bought the CD-ROM disk in either '87 or '88 from the U.S. Geological
Service. It contained (So they told me, remember I never had a machine to
actually read the disk) the digital line graphs (DLG) at 1:250,000 for the
U.S. (might have been 1:100,000 ???). I subsequently managed to get 5 or 6
DLG files in an IBM disk format and by lots of grief transferred them to
the Amiga. I wrote a little Lattice C program to read and display the
files using a superbitmap program from C. Schwepper (sp?) at CIS. At that
point, I could tell you where every railroad track in Rockford,Ill was
located. With another file I could plot the highways, etc. The file format
was very accurately described in USGS brochures.
Since then, the DLG files have been replaced by TIGER files, which were
organized for the 1990 census. It may be difficult to get the 1987 DLG
files on CD-ROM (or there may still be lots of them, I don't really know).
A magazine called CD-ROM used to publish an annual list of retail CD-ROM
disks. That list included the USGS disk and maybe a dozen other government
disks that sold for under $50.00. It also listed many, many disks by
private companies (usually for well over $200)
Let me know if you need more information on the USGS CD-ROM stuff. I
haven't looked at it in well over a year, but it should be around here
somewhere.
You fill it full by sending your data off to a place that puts it on
CD-ROM. There is a whole world out there waiting for the programmers to
realize a few things about CD-ROM that will revolutionize a number of
applications.
What's the price of a WORM drive as compared to a ROM drive, or a CD-Player
with the CD-Rom port?
Paul,
I can't even guess at the prices on WORM drives, except to say that I
have seen a used Maxtor 800 megabyte WORM drive going for about $800. No
idea what the cartridges for it cost.
CD-ROM drives seem to go for about $1000-1500, depending on features, and
can be had used for about $600 and up. I have also heard that a fairly slow
drive made by NEC sells for about $300, but I haven't seen it yet, so I
can't confirm the price.
I think that eventually, we will see much the same thing happening in the
CD-ROM area that has happened in other areas. More software generates more
drive sales, generating lower prices, generating a demand for more
software.
-larry
Fill one full of Interfonts!!! I'd love it!
Billions and Billions of Interfonts, Karl Sagan, er, Sparklin
Chowdy Don,
One of the things that games designers often complain about is the amount
of disk space that really good graphics consume. The explanation for the
poor quality of games converted from movies is that there's never enough
space on the disk to put in the good graphics. Serious design time has to
be dedicated to compressing the graphics down to make room for the actual
program. By using CD-ROMs for games programs this problem would be
eliminated. And in some cases, the author's could switch to hi-res mode
instead of sticking with lo-res in order to save disk space.
Not that I play that many games, but it would make it easier on the
programmers. Oh yes, and the shelf life of CD-ROMs is considerably greated
than floppies. (A plus for the consumer.)
Chow, Cheryl P!
The argument that the CD-ROMs allow you to store vast amounts of graphic
and sound data is valid, but that is only part of the problem. The other
problem is being able to load that data into the system's memory with
reasonable performance so that the game play and flow are smooth. That's a
real design problem, and CD ROMs won't solve that one. The data transfer
rates are too slow to be able to easily have fast transitions. I know
that's one of my complaints about a lot of graphics-intensive games — I
dislike the pauses that crop up from time to time.
However, CD-ROMS _are_ coming eventually, and we games programmers will
have to learn how to make best use of the technology.
…BobR
I am under the impression that current CD-ROM (and CD-ROM XA) technology
can transfer data around 150K/sec… not exactly a speed demon, but then
quite a bit faster than the floppy drives we are now using. I think a
CD-ROM drive on the Ami would be *A Good Thing*, but of course before that
can happen CBM must create a standard method of using and accessing such
drives.
In some ways, they already have. CBM allows for access to any SCSI device
via their SCSIDirect standard. ISO has defined a file system for CD-ROM.
The combination of those two standards mean that we are well along in the
CD-ROM path.
Quite right Larry. And if I might hazard a guess, we're even farther along
that road then many suspect.
I suspect you are right on the mark Lou. Looking forward to CD-ROm with
glee.
Larry,
I just got the DevCon adjenda….I guaranttee you he's right.
Don
<glancing at my nondisclosure agreement>
Larry,
I don't know what the secrecy is about, it's already been blabbed that CBM
is developing a CD-ROM machine, at least in the June/July issue of Amiga
Plus magazine if not elsewhere.
Though I haven't seen any discussion of that article here (though I've had
the issue for a week), THEY said up in the front of the magazine (they're
no dummies) that CBM would announce the new Amiga "This June in Chicago at
[CES]" and that "As described in off-the-record conversations by Commodore
executives, this new machine is essentially a modified Amiga 2000 CPU box
with a built-in CD-ROM player of the most widely accepted format. Included
will be mass-storage CD-ROM sofware such as an interactive world atlas and
a national phone directory." They go on to describe it as playing audio
CD's and that it is NOT being marketed by CBM as a game console.
Okay, that's not alot of detail, but it would follow that this machine
should be supported by software developers and thus should be discussed at
DevCon, methinks.
*** John
Cheryl,
That's true…BUT…we're talking about 600 Meg of room.
Even at a read rate of 1 Meg per second…just to read the data,
let alone do anything with it…would take 10 minutes. In fact, read rates
will be much lower than that…so we're talking about an hour of just
reading data to use all the disk.
Now I realize that the data wouldn't be read in all at once, it'd
be in bits and pieces….but 600 Meg of data is a lot of data.
That's why I said 99% of a CD ROM would be wasted space…and that
would still leave game designers with 6 Meg of room…or more than 6 times
what they have now.
Don
Yah, I think transfer rate is 170K bytes/second… not terribly fast. But
enough room on there for say, 16 hours of mono voice-quality sound. Games
could have an enormous selection of sound effects or player voices to
choose from, as you said.
As John Foust points out, not all data on a CD-ROM needs to be read in for
any given session with a program, be it game or not. A jumbo monster killer
lookup table that is accessed perhaps less than 50 times during a session
might save many minutes of calculation, and if it takes up 50 megs, so
what? It cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called wasted.
Programmers looking into CD-ROM need to throw their preconceived notions
aside and start looking at the technology with a fresh approach. Previous
advances in technology have had to have the same approach, else we would
all still be writing disks in 80 character records.
CD ROMS would finally deliver a non-copyable media, at least for the short
term ! 🙂
Reading your message about non-copyable media brings up this marvellous
vision of some software thief firing up his CD-ROM file system and using it
to copy his $50 CD-ROM to a $2000, 700 meg disk drive. It might even
discourage a lot of them. <chuckle>
<< giggle >>
Do you think they would do that?? Nevermind, I know they would do that. So
much for un-copyable media 🙂
-mark= Punish piracy by electric chair Mark D. Manes Chairman
A good start to ending the piracy plague would be to strip them of their
"Errol flynn" persona by no longer calling them "pirates".
We should call them what they really are, criminals.
Speaking of criminals… I saw on CNN today the big nationwide hacker bust,
and there sitting on a table along with some of the equiptment seized was
an Amiga 1000! We've got some bad motor-scooters out there! I saw an Apple
something also, but the Amy caught my eye. I guess they blew their trade in
by having it confiscated!
Don, ok, but not many people have 60+ mb drives either (well no that
they're gonna leave a game installed on <smmiiille>). Seriously…most of
the publishers/authors I know are pleased with the coming prospect of
publishing on CD-ROM. The productions costs are down to where floppies
were about 2 years ago…and it's for darn sure you don't need to include
more than one CD-ROM in the package. So there may even be a cost savings
for packages which now currently have several floppies included.
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.
I imagine you could get one HELL of a Dragon's Lair or Space Ace from
a CD!
— Ethan