Re: CD-Rom ProDOS 8 driver?

[dempson@swell.actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

In article <1994Feb15.204046.886@pro-ssor.cts.com> sturner@pro-ssor.cts.com (Sean Turner) writes:
> Is there driver software for a CD-ROM drive in ProDOS 8 format? Can a
> CD-ROM be daisy-chained to an Apple HS SCSI card behind a 40meg HD
> partitioned into 32 and 8 megs?

Yes.  The Apple HS SCSI card has a ProDOS-8 device driver for CD-ROM
drives.  I know it works with the Apple CDSC, CDSC Plus and CD-150.
It may support the CD-300 for data accesses (but not audio).

The limitations: you need special software to access any CD-ROM which
uses a file system other than ProDOS (which means all CD-ROMs which
are not specifically intended for the Apple II, generally speaking).
Most CD-ROMs are in High Sierra or ISO-9660 format.  These can be
accessed from GS/OS (using the High Sierra File System Translator).  I
think Apple used to license ProDOS-8 code for accessing these discs
from ProDOS-8 programs.

Similar problems arise with Macintosh CD-ROMs, which will usually be
in HFS format.  I don't know if HFSLink can handle very large HFS
volumes.

Another limitation: if you are using ProDOS-8 1.9 or earlier, you
won't be able to access the CD-ROM drive unless your SCSI card is in
slot 5 (you'll then have access to up to two partitions on the CD-ROM).
With ProDOS-8 2.0 and later, you should be able to access several data
partitions on the CD-ROM, but if you change to another CD-ROM with more
partitions, you will have to reboot to access them.

The CD-ROM drive should be set to a lower SCSI ID than the hard drive
(unless you want to boot from the CD-ROM, which is unlikely).  It
doesn't matter whether the CD-ROM drive is connected before or after
your hard drive, as long as you have the SCSI terminator at the end of
the chain.  If you're using an external terminator, it should be
connected after the last device.  If your hard drive is internally
terminated, then it must be connected last (i.e. the CD-ROM is
connected to the computer, and the hard drive is connected to the
CD-ROM). 

The SCSI card also provides calls to control audio operations on the
drive, but these are done by using SmartPort calls, and aren't
accessed through ProDOS.  I don't know of any ProDOS-8 programs which
use these commands (apart from a little BASIC program I wrote to
control playing audio discs).

Any more questions?  :-)
-- 
David Empson                                                               
dempson@swell.actrix.gen.nz                                                
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand