Chinon CD-ROM & A-MAX
29 messages in this thread
I need some help from Xetec/Chinon CD-ROM users who are using their CD-ROM
drives with A-Max. I recently got a hold of the Chinon Mac drivers along
with a free Nautilus intro disc and have been unsuccessful at being able to
load files off a Mac CD-ROM disc. I am able to play Audio CD's just fine
under A-Max using the CD Control DA. Also the Foreign File Access INIT
works just fine at accessing IBM and Amiga (CDTV) ISO-9660 discs; they
mount properly and you can get directories of the discs from Finder.
However, I seem to be having a problem in using Mac (HFS) CD-ROMs. They
show up on the DeskTop and I can get a directory, but if I try to run any
programs from the disc, the CD just spins for a while and then the machine
locks up. I have only been successful at reading short 1-2k TeachText files
from the discs I own (Nautilus & MacWorld SuperStacks). Anything larger
that that, and A-Max will lock up while accessing the file.
I am running under A-Max 2.06 and System 6.0.5. Would appreciate any help
inthis matter.
Sunny,
What computer CPU speed are you using? I have a 3000 25/50 & was
having many problems with System 6.0.2 & consequently upgraded to 6.0.7.
This system upgrade allowed more hypercard programs to run but I still have
problems with most of the Nautilus disk. I intend to step down the CPU
speed with BootCache. I heard that many Mac programs have problems with
higher CPU speed.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
Don,
I have a 2000 w/2630 accelerator card. However, I don't think my
problems are related to CPU speed. Except for small text files, I can't
_read_ anything off a Mac CD, whether I'm trying to run a program or trying
to copy a file from CD to a ram disk. The drive and A-Max will both just
lock up after about 15 seconds when trying to access a file.
Also, the lockup problem occurs using either the CDINIT(Mac+) or
CDINIT(MacII) files. The problem is really frustrating because I can use
CD-Audio, IBM, and CDTV discs just fine while in A-Max (obviously I can't
run any IBM/Amiga prgs, but I can copy files) but I can't do the same for
Mac discs!
I will try slowing down the computer, as you suggested, to see if that
has any effect.
Sunny,
Good luck resolving your problem. Have you had any problems with
Mac audio & Amax II? I can't seem to get the audio working. Also using
audio frequently crashes programs.
Do you have Timetable of History/Science? The audio/video stuff on
this disk is great. I showed it at a computer club meeting last week &
they were amazed that such a program only sells for $40.00. Of course
there were a lot of IBM users there and they were AMAZED by the Amiga
anyway. I also demoed Vista Pro & MakePath cruising through the Grand
Canyon. If the capability of the Amiga/CDTV was more widely known I think
there would easily be 15 million sold in a year.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
Don,
CD-Audio is working fine for me under A-Max. In fact, its currently the
only thing I can get working fine under A-Max. I was wrong in my previous
comment about being able to access IBM & CDTV discs without problems. I am
running into the same problem accessing IBM/CDTV discs as I am with the Mac
discs. That is, I can read small files (<10K) ok, but accessing anything
larger will lockup A-Max.
I do have the TToH:Sci & Innov. disc, and I agree that it is an
excellent disc. Have you seen (or purchased) any new CDTV discs lately?
I'm particularly interested in the CDTV Groliers disc.
Sunny,
Yes… A couple of weeks ago I picked up "Wrath of the Demon" mainly
because of the ReadySoft name. It's a nice game but I'm having a hard time
advancing levels.
At that time I saw a Sherlock Holmes disk which got good reviews in
one of the rags. Also on the shelf was a Bible disk & the complete
Shakespeare collection which could also run on an IBM.
Last weekend I spotted "American Vista" but I'm waiting for Xetec to
test it on their 3000 before I pick it up. I suspect that they wouldn't
repeat the compatibility problems which plagued "World Vista" but I'm not
leaving it to chance.
I did not see Groliers in the store. Did you hear whether this is
supposed to include graphics & printing capability? I heard the Mac
version was text only but that was several years ago.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
Groliers has Graphics but no printing (Dumb Xiphias, real dumb), and
keyboard support, it's also now incuded with the CDTV's along with Lemmings
for the new price of $750.
It can be ordered seperately it lists for $399 (we would special order it
at $329).
BEN:Leigh's Computer's
Ben,
Now that's a nice package!!! If CDTV is now only around $700 &
includes $450 worth of software…. let's see… uhm.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
$750. unless your a student/teacher or educational institution. So once
you take off the $450 of software (well $388 if I base it on what we sell
the stuff at) then it's $300 ($362 if you base it on the previous ()).
BEN:Leigh's Computer's
Ben,
I purposely rounded down the $50.00 since usually it is possible to
get a deal at least $50.00 off list. I purposely used the list price of
the software (remember to include the Lemmings disk) to exagerate a point.
It makes the CDTV a remarkable bargain. The general public can be
impressed with CDTV software if it is shown to them. I showed off just the
"Time Table of Science" disk at a users group meeting & received many "how
much?" inquiries and much enthusiasm.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
Oh, but the list is now $799 we sell it at $750.
BEN:Leigh's Computer's
Yeah it was dumb that printing wasnt supported by any of the X prods
however, we only recieved information on the C= approved printer driver
and selector stuff at the end of August, so ya cant blame us…
To those who liked the TToH/Science disk, have you tried TToH/Business?
Also TToH/Arts and Literature is due out "Real Soon Now". It will be at
least as detailed as TTSI, but with higher quality articles.
In early 1992 there will be an updated TT series (maybe grolier too) that
includes printing and some CDXL animations. Get your suggestions in now,
I will pass them on.
Jerry Isdale, contract programmer for Xiphias
P.S. If you have the CDTV Dictionary and an Amiga, you have a library of
over 4000 HAM images.
The printing will be more than welcome, so will CDXL.
BEN:Leigh's Computer's
Jerry,
I hope you don't forget the many none CDTV users when you develop
your products in the future. We all have keyboards & printers. Also there
must be some kind of CDXL emulator or we will not support disks that have
that capability. For example, I'm sure there would have been many more
"World Vista" disks sold had it been compatible with the 3000.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
C= is planning to release their own CDROM drive for the Amiga 2&3000 series
machines. They want to be sure the CDTV products work on that platform, so
the 3000 users will be supported. The trick is CDXL. It is a very
proprietary system as far as C= is concerned. They have applied for a
patent on the process. There is some support in the CDTV hardware/driver
for this now and the drive for the 3000 will also have the support.
However, Xetec and others will be left in the cold.
Personally, i dont like this. I would rather see them license the
technology. However it is part of the C= marketing strategy, and we all
know how that (doesnt) work 🙂
JBI
I'm glad that you have a positive attitude toward Xetec especially
since during your conference on CI$ a few months back you endorsed the
Xetec drive and this was partly my reason for going that route. The Xetec
people are some of the nicest you could talk to & I wouldn't like to see
them left out in the cold.
I'm curious though, the CBM drive for the A3000, is that SCSI? If so
then I would think the Xetec drive could be made to emulate CDXL.
If the CDTV units get any more reasonable, I may get one for my
living room anyway, but I'd still like to run the CBM stuff on my A3000
along with the Mac & IBM stuff. It would be rediculous to be capable of
running other platforms' products but not CBM's on my Amiga.
Jerry,
Also, it's trivial to plug a printer into the back of the CDTV (no, I
don't know how you'd set preferences).
It's trivial to plug a printer in yes, but which printer are you using?
and what driver software, and what about printing graphics and ….
printers are not a simple issue from the software perspective.
To add to the how-do-you-do-it problems, is how much do you print?
eg. Some text suppliers dont want you to be able to print whole articles,
or the articles can be very long (US history is > 100K in Grolier).
Rest assured, printing will be implemented. Its in the contract.
JBI.
Sunny, the programs on the Nautilus CD seems to be a little finicky. I've
talked to Dave about this from Xetec and he has problems running the CD on
a actual MAC SE! Seems like some of the programs require a color board, so
you can scratch those. Also if you are using a 3000, some of the programs
choke on the 68030 just as they do on the Amiga. I tried using System 6.07
but on quite a few of the programs it died and reported that a Math
Coprocessor was not installed, which of course is not correct, so I
switched back to 6.05. This version seems to be the most stable for me for
running some of the Nautilus programs, but it is still "Hit and Miss".
Seems like the people at Nautilus did a poor job of checking to see if the
CD was completely compatable with all the different Mac's.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
John,
The problem is that I can't even _access_ files >10k from _any_ CD-ROM
(IBM, Mac or CDTV) while under A-Max. I can get a directory and read
and/or copy small files under 10K, but trying to access any file larger
than that causes A-Max to lockup. So I'm not even getting a chance to run
a program, incompatible or not.
I'm beginning to suspect it may be the controller I'm using (an ICD
AdSCSI 2000), since I get this same lockup problem under many different
conditions (in 68000 or '030, using different Mac system versions). Or
perhaps the A-Max HD driver that ICD provides is deficient in some way.
I'll try calling them to find out if they can provide any more info.
Anyway, have you acquired any interesting CD-ROMS lately? I'm
interested in the CDTV Groliers, but haven't got a chance to see it yet. I
hope C= starts advertising CDTV outside of their test markets so I can
hopefully start trading CDTV discs with other users locally.
Sunny, this is a little bit of a jump in the topic, but I am seeing
occasional lockups with my setup – also an ICD AdSCSI 2000 controller – and
was planning on calling ICD and/or ReadySoft about it. Will you let us
know what their answer is to your query?
Thanks, Mike
You could be right, there may be a problem with ICD's Amax driver. Haven't
purchased any CDTV discs lately Sunny. Most of what I have seen has been
rather boring, and who wants to get a CD-Rom with only 1 game on it with
very little improvement from the disk version? I wouldn't mind getting
Grolliers, but from what I understand if you don't have a CDTV unit, its
going to cost you over $300. That's one of my main concerns about CD-Rom
technology, Amiga, IBM, or otherwise, is the inflated prices I've seen on
most CD-Rom's.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
There's a lot more than 1 game avalable (let's see we've had Defender of
the crown,
Wrath of the demon, BattleStorm, Cautious Condor, Psycho killer, Snoopy
the case of the Missing blanket and a couple of others)
BEN:Leigh's Computer's
John,
I hear this over & over about the so called inflated cost of CD
disks. How can you call a disk like the "Time Table of Science" disk at
$40.00 inflated? That's the cost of a Nintendo cartridge and you get so
much more. I demoed this disk at a Computer Club this weekend & they
couldn't believe the low cost especially after seeing & hearing the Shuttle
visuals on the disk. Granted there were many IBM users (easily impressed)
there.
About the only reason I can think of for this logic is that they are
hard to "share" with friends. Please elaborate on you feelings that the
software is expensive. I haven't seen anything over $50.00 yet.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
Groiliers if bought seperately is $329 (but of course it's free now with
the CDTV and a $50 upgrade for previous owner).
BEN:Leigh's Computer's
Don, I think if you read my message again, I was talking about CD-Roms in
general as having inflated prices. Take a look sometime at some of the CD's
available for the IBM and Mac community, and not the special "Bundle"
deals. If you buy them individually, some of them can cost a small fortune.
Some of the more expensive ones are those where they have taken a
government data tape, transferred the data to CD, wrote a simple text
search engine, and selling the CD for over $500. Now in my book, that is
inflated. Especially considering the fact that you can send a tape and have
it mastered with an initial run of 100 CD's for less than $2000.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
John,
I'm really only interested in the Amiga & CDTV CD roms since they
are the ones I will use primarily despite the fact that I could use Mac &
IBM disks. Actually though I have seen some relatively inexpensive Mac
disks.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
The $40 price for TTSI is a bargin when you consider that the poor fools
who buy the MAC version (list $90) are stuck with a black and white
version.
The PC version (included in the NEC bundle) just came out. It's interface
was
taken from the CDTV version. It uses CD audio 'cause none of the PC sound
cards were up to snuff (and down in price). It doesnt have the Animations
found in the CDTV version 'cause of the CD-audio (not CDXA).
Jerry,
I highly commend you for the "Time Table of Science". I love the
program & am having lots of fun with it. I've noticed that most of the
animations are space travel related but you won't get any complaints from
me about that. I'm surprised though that there are no pictures or
animations on undersea exploration.
———————————————-Don- via Whap!