#CDTV chokes on new food
9 messages in this thread
I bought one of the CDTV's cheap recently and have picked up some disks,
all with the concern that I wouldn't be able to read them, since they're
not Amiga-specific. But most have worked just fine, with Parnet hooked up
to the 4000. The one surprise I have is that I can't even view the "ab20"
disk I found for $10 without the CDTV crashing. So, too, with "Visions of
Saturn". Are there any workarounds for sneaking a peek at these disks, or
are they simply incompatible? (I was thinking someone on C'Serve said that
they had successfully used the "ab20" disk with CDTV and Parnet.)
Thanks,
Karl
The AB20 disc has an invalid date. Unfortunately, CDTV doesn't deal well with
an invalid date; its filesystem gets terminally confused. It turns out that
if you add a 3rd party CD filesystem, you can access those discs; A setpatch
for the problem is also possible; if I get some free time, I might do one.
andy
Wow, thank you for that very specific confirmation of this bug. It's a
problem with the datestamp of the volume, or of files?
One of Syndesis' next products is something called the Syndesis
3D-ROM. It's a collection of more than 500 public domain 3D models,
all converted to several of the 3D file formats we support in
InterChange Plus. I hope to have this disc out in May. It will be
ISO-9660.
I really wanted to pre-master it on the Amiga, but CBM's recent logic
in raising the per-disc royalty for using the ISO tools has forced me
to the Mac and PC for the pre-mastering tasks. If you've got any
similarly very specific insight into CBM's logic about the royalty
increase… I'd love to hear that, too. 🙂
Noting your msg to Andy re CBM's royalty increase on discs, allow me to
share the following:
One of the Brit mags quoted a CBM official over there to the effect that
the company has continuing plans to push CD-ROM technology and feels it
only fair that developers help underwrite that. Given the big sale on now
for CDTV, seems as though CBM is going the route pioneered by other
companies…sell the hardware as cheap as you can, then make it back on
the software. Of course, the CDTV sale might not be a precursor to new,
improved drives or an attempt to build market. It might just be that they
needed some quick cash.
How much would you like to pay for a CDTV title? Fifty bucks? Take
forty percent of retail; that's what a developer / publisher gets
from a distributor. So the pie to divide is $20 in size. Commodore
wants fifteen percent of your profits – BEFORE any concerns about
development costs, paying programmers, capital, advertising,
production, overhead, etc. That's insane. Here's my take on it: CBM
honchos said that the ISO tools group had to justify their existence,
and a middle manager came up with this scheme to save his own neck as
well as anyone working for/with him.
You're welcome. It's the datestamp on the volume itself, and that sounds like
a interesting disc.
(You'll have to talk to C= about rates; I'm strictly technical 🙂 )
andy
As long as we're on the subject…is there any other advantage in
using a third party CD filesystem with CDTV (other than accessing the
AB20 disc)? I'm thinking in terms of increased accessibility to Mac
or PC discs. I gather the Asim driver handles Mac HFS, but I wonder
if this is meant only for a third party CD ROM drive or could be made
to work via a CDTV or A570 drive.
None that I can think of. The CDFS in the CDTV is nicely mated to the hardware
in the CDTV. Only if the 3rd party filesystem does things like HFS is there
any reason normally.
andy
Thanks for the reply on the ab20 disk and it's problem. And CDTV's
intolerance of it. I'll sell it to someone who has a 3rd party
filesystem.
Karl