#CD-ROM availability
7 messages in this thread
Is CD-ROM for Amiga (1000) currently available? Can the Amdek drive be
used with the Amiga? Is there any chance that a CD-ROM unit will ever be sold
that can (a) play CDs through a sound system AND (b) be driven by the Amiga as
a digital synthesizer AND (c) let me peruse an encyclopedia onscreen?
For commercial reasons ("why sell one when you can sell three?") I am less
than optimistic about such a device ever appearing. Am I correct, though, in
believing that there is no inherent technical impasse preventing its
development?
Stephen,
The "FM Towns" computer, sold only in Japan, comes with a CD-ROM that is used
both for reading data and for playing standard audio CDs. You can't to both
simultaneously, however. —Mike
I appreciate the interesting information. Never heard of the "FM
Towns" computer, but then time pressure has forced my reading in the field
to narrow to Amiga only. I'd be very happy if my three-in-one CD-ROM would
perform each of its functions one at a time–I should have put it more
clearly, I didn't mean all three at once. Now that would be multitasking
on a grand scale!
If you want A, B, and C all at the same time, well, no. But the CD plaers on
the market today will often play regular CDs through an audio jack out the
back, when given an instruction to, from some software. So the software could
function like a highly smart front panel for a stereo, playing the tracks you
want. Also, grabbing and playing digital sound data from the disk is possible,
given the difference in sampling rates between CD and the Amiga's highest
speeds. Encyclopedias? Does anyone really use the Grolier Encyclopedia? 🙂
Sure, it's possible. You can even buy cheap SCSI CD ROM players for about
$700-800 bucks these days. Someone just has to write a bunch of software for
it, after the initial investment. Plus, what data are you going to read?
Whoops, might need more software drivers, after you get the software done.
It should be possible to build a driver for CD-ROM that uses the ISO 9660
or High Serria formats. Then you could access most of the PC based
CD-ROMs… The Amiga would also be a good multi-media CD-ROM platform with
a low cost CD-ROM drive.
Sure, we can read the data, but that doesn't mean we'll understand their
index files or compression… For example, doesn't Microsoft's Bookshelf
CD require special software to drive it on the PC side. I know it does.
I'd think you'd have to duplicate that on the Amiga, to use that CD.
At work (I work in a bookstore) we use the CD-ROM version of
Books-In-Print. It turns out that nearly all of the software (MS-DOS
stuff, of course) required to use the CD is in fact on the disk itself. All
we have on our harddisk is a CD-ROM driver and a .BAT file that starts the
CD-based software on its merry way. There is a nasty downside to this
scheme, however: the CD-ROM unit must be in perfect alignment, and the CD
itself must have an error rate of almost zero, or the sucker crashes all
over the place.