I was interested in finding out why CDROM cutters had not 'appeared'
yet, here are the replies...
Hi,
I've been looking for just this too. Not much further since
last time I think we spoke. You were trying the Philips unit as far as
I remember. I believe the Young Minds software can drive it (costs
quite a bit though) and I've heard of a few people in the UK apparently
working on their own driver, but I believe still a few months away.
Look forward to any news too.
Cheers
Stuart
From: cyerkes@jpmorgan.com (Chuck Yerkes)
Message-Id: <9303081118.AA06437@gd-dev1.ny.jpmorgan.com>
To: hydres!paul@uknet.ac.uk
Subject: Re: CDROM's again
Status: RO
Read BYTE magazine this month.
chuck yerkes
cyerkes@uk.jpmorgan.com
Try taking a look at Datamation, Feb 15, 1993, p57. There is
an article on cutting CDs and the current state of standards.
Phillips, Sony, and JVC all have cutters. Which have SUN drivers
is a different question... Also, ease of use of the cutters varies -
eg can you test a CD image before you cut a $40 CD? Dataware Technologies
of Cambridge MA is working on improved software for a SUN version.
If you get anything else, please let me know.
John Marsh
jmarsh@mitre.org
Subject: Re: CDROM's again
Status: R
I have just ordered such a system for our lab from Young Minds Inc. of Redlands,
CA. This is the only one that I have found that that will provide full ISO 9660,
RockRidge or Unix format (on demand) compatibility on a Sun SPARCStation using
a double speed writer (Phillips CDD521 or Sony -- Phillips is the standard).
The system consists of both hardware and software (the software to do premastering
but not writing is available separately) consisting of a controller, writer and
premastering software "Makedisk". The controller contains its own 1GB disk and
SCSI interface for the writer, sits on the Sun's SCSI bus and looks like a raw
tape drive to the Sun. "Makedisk" works on the Sun and formats/writes the CD
image to the YMi controller's disk. It can provide either ISO-9660, RockRidge
or Unix-file-system compatible images; it also provides a "PFS" (Portable
File System) file which can be written to the CD-WO and will allow another
(Unix) system which does not support RockRidge to read a RockRidge-format disk.
More than you want to know!
The full system is expensive -- partly because of the cost of the Phillips or
Sony writer (about $7K US for Phillips, about $9K us for Sony), the (prop-
rietary) controller and 1GB disk and partly because of the the fairly sophis-
ticated software. The cost list is about $18,000 ($15,500 US to Universities),
but I understand there is a "stripped-down" version (maybe using a single-speed
writer -- not Phillips) in the works at a lower cost.
My contact is Darrin McBreen:
email: yngmnds!mcbreen@ucrmath.ucr.edu
phone: (909) 335_1350
FAX: (909) 798-0488
*-------------------------------*--------------------------------------*
| | |
| Gordon Lentz | |
| Laboratory for Astrophysics | |
| and Space Research | Internet: lentz@ody1.uchicago.edu |
| Enrico Fermi Institute | SPAN: LASR::LENTZ |
| University of Chicago | Phone: (312)702-7836 |
| 933 East 56th Street | Fax: (312)702-6645 |
| Chicago IL 60637 | |
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*-------------------------------*--------------------------------------*
Hi,
We have such a Philips device, and it is connected to a PC indeed.
The reason is, that while writing, it needs 300 kbyte/sec *sustained*
troughput. The laser writes further - even if your SPARC has to wait
some ms because it has to sync or whatever.
I know it's ugly, but think of a PC as a large (600Mbyte) buffer with
DMA that just happens to have a CPU in it. The 'sun-based' solutions
I have seen always use a 'buffer box', and as far as I have seen these
are always more expensive as PC's. I would not be surprized if there
was a PC in them.
With the current street prices of PC's, is there anything more to loose
than one's pride?
Geert Jan
Paul,
We have the Philips CDrom One-off machine hooked up to one
of our IPC's. It works pretty well, but since I'm with the U.S.
government, I can't endorse it in any way. I can give you
an e-mail address of the company which sold us ours.
Hope this helps,
Vender:
Young Minds Inc.
Mathew Hornbeck
e-mail: yngmnds!hornbeck@ucrmath.ucr.edu
The cheapest CD-ROM writer I have seen is from Pinnacle Micro and is
being advertised at US$3995 including software. Blank media is around
US$30. Let me know if you can't find an address for Pinnacle Micro.
This is sigificantly cheaper than the Philips drive.
If you do want to buy the Philips drive with good authoring software,
check out a company called Dataware Technologies. You can reach them
at 617 621 0820 in Cambridge MA. I would think that they would have a
UK presence as well. I know several people at this company and they
seem to be very good.
--Jim Dempsey--
jjd@bbn.com
Paul Humphreys ( Postmaster ) paul@hydres.uucp
HR Wallingford paul%hydres.uucp@uknet.ac.uk
Howbery Park
Wallingford Tel: 0491-35381 X2292
Oxon Fax: 0491-32233
OX10-8BA
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