Re: CD-ROM weirdness, and System 6 on CD-ROM

[salfter@salfter.dyndns.org (Scott Alfter)]

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In article <EZb0a.64231$Ik.2605844@typhoon.sonic.net>,
Andy McFadden  <fadden@fadden.com> wrote:
>Scott Alfter <salfter@salfter.dyndns.org> wrote:
>> Is there something odd about the Sony mechanism that Sun used?  I figured a
>> SCSI CD-ROM drive is a SCSI CD-ROM drive.  One page I ran across through
>> Google indicates that Apple used the same mechanism in some of its
>> products...might there be some difference in firmware between the drives
>> used by the two companies such that the drive I bought won't work?
>
>Sun's older machines used CD-ROM drives with a different default block
>size (2048 vs. 512 if memory serves).  The difference appeared to be a
>way to encourage you to buy their overpriced CD-ROM drives.

I thought it might be something like that.  If there's no way to make it
behave like a normal CD-ROM drive, I'll go ahead and put the mechanism up on
eBay.  I have a wide variety of machines at home, from a VIC-20 to a dual
Athlon MP 2100...but there aren't any Suns among them.

>As far as CD-ROM filesystem formats go, don't forget that you can put
>ISO-9660, HFS, Joliet, and Rock Ridge formats all on one disc.  So you
>can please the "we want ISO-9660" crowd while keeping the HFS people happy.

Been there, done that.  While mkisofs will write a partition table to the
CD, it doesn't appear to be able to create multiple partitions.  It
definitely doesn't know anything about ProDOS.  I've gone ahead and created
a utility that creates a partition table to string multiple ProDOS
filesystems together into one burnable ISO.  With a minor tweak, it'd also
allow the inclusion of HFS filesystems.

I posted the utility last night to comp.binaries.apple2, but the Spanish
spammers crapflooded the group last night and caused the post to expire
before it could leave the Cox news server.  Maybe it's just as well, since I
forgot to include the makefile in the tarball I posted.  I reposted (through
Newshosting) a fixed version this morning.

  _/_   Scott Alfter
 / v \  salfter@salfter.dyndns.org
(IIGS(  http://alfter.us            Top-posting!
 \_^_/  pkill -9 /bin/laden         >What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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