Re: CDR's & MP3 for GS???

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:

>In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...
>
>>spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
>>
>>>    Even if you could support writing, don't you think a 650 MB
>>>permanent storage device is a bit overkill for the IIgs? With a
>>>CD-R your expected to continually create discs packed with 650
>>>megabytes of data. PC and Mac users have no trouble filling this
>>>space because size of audio/video data (QT, AVI, MP3), not too
>>>mention the sheer size of software archives that are often many
>>>hundred megabytes large. In comparison, I can practically fit
>>>the *entire* Caltech Apple II FTP archive onto a single CD-ROM.
>>
>>Haven't you seen all the interesting HyperCard and
>>HyperStudio stacks that have been produced?  Haven't
>>you seen the rather large animations and sounds that
>>can be produced.  Haven't you ever wondered why there
>>are not more CD-ROM titles THAT ACTUALLY TAKES
>>ADVANTAGE OF THE IIGS' CAPABILITIES?
>
>    I think the reason for the lack of CD-ROM titles for the IIgs
>has to do with 1) Very few IIgs owners have a CD-ROM drive hooked
>up to their systems and 2) The Apple IIgs software market died
>long before compact discs and drives became affordable.

Unless you unleash the USER CREATED software forum.
I'm taking about the bastion of people who create
HyperCard or HyperSudio based software.  This is the
target audience I'm talking about.  These people create
software for the sole purpose of enjoying it and sharing
it with others.  But they are hampered by storage
considerations.  It would be silly to try to upload a 300MB
archive to ground and Zip disks costs too much as a
distributing medium for non-profit software distribution.

Hey, if I had a CD-R on my SCSI chain, I would give
a shot at writing a multimedia game as described above
because I can distribute my software on CD-R for
$5 each.  It would be freeware for the cost of the disc
and shipping.

>    Now we're stuck in a kind of catch-22, because despite CD-ROM
>drives now being affordable, users have little incentive to buy
>them because of the lack of CD titles. On the flip side, authors
>who still publish software (which is to a very, very, small market)
>aren't interested in producing programs that *require* CD's as it
>means reducing your market to a tiny handful of users. As it stands
>now, if you sell IIgs software you don't want _anything_ that could
>potentially cut into your profits, because then your just breaking
>even or even losing money.

But USER/authors ARE interested in just breaking even.
I'd LOVE to write a multimedia Hyper/Studio/Card based
adventure game for no profit.  A CD-R lets me do this.
Zip is too expensive and distribution of a large/complex
game over the internet is impossible.

>    We've seen a couple of data archive-only CD's because it costs
>little or nothing to produce (except mostly the time involved in
>organizing and sorting data). Today you can even purchase your
>own blank CD's, labels and a burner, and do your own in-house
>publishing. Blank discs are only about $1/ea. I don't think
>anyone is pressing Apple II CD's anymore.

THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!  USER PRESSED
CD-ROMs.  Unleash the potential of the target audience
of a free program like HyperCard.  The potential of
HyperCard and HyperStudio are currently hampered
by disk space considerations.  CD-Rs release the
constraints.  Zip disks do too, but again they are much
too expensive for distribution purposes.  Meanwhile,
CD-Rs are the cost of a cassette tape and you know
there are a lot of non-profit bands distributing music
this way.

>>Take HyperCard and HyperStudio stacks...the biggest
>>ones I've seen are 3MB archives (probably unpacks
>>to 5MB).  These things just START to tap into the potential
>>of the IIGS.  If I had a CD-ROM burner that can easily
>>directly record on the IIGS, I can learn one or both
>>of these authoring systems and make a large adventure
>>game, complete with graphics, video sequences, and
>>tons of digitized sounds and still graphics.  Imagine
>>if each stack were a segment of an adventure game
>>and takes 1MB of storage.  You can have 650 scenes
>>in the game!  All the stacks can link to each other to
>>provide a coherent gaming environment.  And there
>>would be no need for scripters to skimp on disk space.
>
>    I have to admit it would be _very_ neat to take advantage
>of all the storage space on a CD for a IIgs game, or a stack.
>You could have plently of long digitized music scores and
>video captures (DreamVision, Mini-Movies and even Paintworks
>animations are proof you can do moving video) and still have
>lots of room left over for the main program.

Yup.  I've got several ideas and I might even carry
them out using my Zip drive, but I'm pretty certain
that as soon as I go over 10MB (the practical limit
of internet distributable Apple II software) the target
audience of the HyperStudio or HyperCard stack
would be limited to my own IIGS.  With CD-Rs, that's
different.  Suddenly, for $5 admission, ANYONE
with a CD-ROM drive on a IIGS can see my game.
So what if there are only a handful of such users.
Fifty or even 20 is better than one and incentive
for me to get cracking.  I'm sure it is the same for
others.

>    Though this is just an arguement for having a CD-ROM drive,
>not a burner. If someone published a game that required a CD
>drive, they could create all the data and then burn it onto a
>master CD using their PC or Mac (then make copies from there).
>Digisoft didn't burn their Golden Orchard CD (which had both
>ProDOS and HFS partitions) using the IIgs for example.

You don't understand.  It is not that easy.  First,
you MUST use HFS and ProDOS.  These files must
be usable and ISO9660 is only good for archives from
the IIGS point of view.  So that mandates a Mac or
Windows PC with a Mac emulator.  But that's not
all.  The Golden Orchard is only a conglomeration
of files.  For a large multimedia game, you'd need
the logical pathname organization to remain intact.
Can you imagine trying to copy hundreds of files
over to a Mac and trying to keep the pathname
relationships exactly the same?  It would be more
trouble than a freeware game would be worth.  Not
so if the CD-R were ON THE IIGS!

>    In any case, this is all fantasy since it doesn't seem
>likely the GS would be fast enough to support a CD-R burner.

This has not been proven.  Now before you start
attacking me saying "he thinks I'm GS bashing again"
or something crazy like that, I'm not saying that
I'm 100% sure it can be done.  But they said the
same thing about FAX on the IIGS, MultiFinder for
the IIGS, UNIX style shells for the IIGS, multitasking
for the IIGS, and TCP/IP for the IIGS.  They've been
proven wrong for all of these and today these tasks
can be done on the IIGS.  You will forgive me if I
take your view with a grain of salt?  Again, I'm not
saying I am sure it can be done.  Only that until
it is proven that it can't be done, it is still within
the realm of possibility and maybe even probability.

>Also, I don't see any current interest in writing CD-ROM
>games and programs, though that isn't to say someone can't.
>CD-ROM software falls into the same catagory as the Second
>Sight--lots of potential is *there*, but no one is jumping
>at it and it remains relatively untapped.

I'd give it a shot if I had a CD-R drive on the IIGS.  I'm
sure many HyperStudio and HyperCard users would
too.  The IIGS user has always been locked into the
mindset that "if I make my software too big, I will
never be able to distribute it as freeware or shareware."
Hard drives and even Zip drives don't change this.
Who wants to write cool multimedia adventure games
that no one but themselves and their friends/families will
see?  CD-R is the first medium that's cheap enough to
change this.  CD-Rs are almost as cheap as floppy
disks.