No Fragments Archive 12: Textmags & Docs/nf_archive_12.iso/MAGS/DOCS/CDSPCIAL.ZIP/CDSPCIAL/CD_ROM.RTC

Text File | 1994-01-29 | 22.8 KB | 548 lines

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                       Atari ST RoundTable
                      Real Time  Conference

                      Monday, Jan. 24, 1994



                  CD ROM for the Atari Computer!
                  ==============================
                               with
                        CD ROM Developers
             Greg Kopchak, Roger Burrows, Brian Grier

                          Special Guests
              David Troy, Damien Jones, S.Fardishgh

                         Host - Lou Rocha

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Our guests tonight are Greg Kopchak from It's All
Relative, David Troy from Toad Computers and Roger Burrows, from
Anodyne Software.

Our topic is CD ROM for the Atari and we look forward to hearing
about the latest developments for our platform. The crowd is small
right now, so if you have a question or comment please /raise your
hand.

I am going to ask our main guest, Greg Kopchak, to upload his
opening comments. GA Greg.

<GREG> I'd like to post a few things about Photo Show Pro supports
Kodak Photo CD on the Atari Falcon 030 and allows the user to
create scripted slide shows and presentations that make maximum
use of the built in hardware capabilities of the Falcon 030. Photo
Show Pro has twenty different fades and disolves when creating
scripts, allows overlay of text on graphics in your choice of
system colors, screen fades to black or white, inverse colors, and
image overlays. Photo Show scripts can be created directly from CD
using the Kodak Photo CD PCD format or created from disk using the
FTC 16 bit true color format. All effects are super smooth, even
when running under MultiTOS.

Digitized sound files in AVR format can scripted along with
graphics allowing the user to add commentary, sound effects, or
background music to their presentations.

For creating titles, Photo Show Pro displays 24-bit BMP files in
the Microsoft Windows bitmap format.

Photo Show Pro can be used with VGA, RGB (Atari monitor), and
standard broadcast televisions. Slide shows and presentations can
be recorded to VCR using either RF output or the higher quality
composite output of the Falcon 030.

Full 16 bit color with correct aspect ratios are displayed on all
monitor types except monochrome.

Photo Show Pro will auto show your Kodak Photo CD graphics using
16 different effects directly from your Photo CD discs. A special
Corel mode allows the same auto shows using the Corel series of
Photo CD images. Corel is planning to release over 100 theme discs
of Kodak Photo CD graphics with each disc containing 100 images.
Conversions can be made to 16-bit FTC, 24-bit TIF, 24-bit EPS, and
24-bit RAW formats from Kodak Photo CD's PCD format. Image
conversions can be done in pixel resolutions of 192 by 128 up to
3072 by 2048.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Thanks Greg. I didn't realize you were an old pro
at RTC uploads :-) Our next comment comes from Brian Grier. Go
Ahead, Brian.

<[Brian] B.GRIER> I really would like to make an announcement. I
have created a program to allow Atari users to access Compton's
New Media CD-Roms on Atari computers.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Brian, can you tell us a little more about it?

<[Brian] B.GRIER> Please excuse my typing as this is my first RTC.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> You're doing EXCELLENT.

<[Brian] B.GRIER> My program accesses Compton's M.O.S.T discs. It
currently works with the "Book of Home Remedies", "The King James
Bible", and the "CIA/KGB information book" I would like to say it
works with more but I have to buy more CD-Roms to be sure.

Everything works pretty much as the windows(tm) version. You are
allowed to have as many open sections as you want, and can display
pictures, and play audio (STe/TT only right now).

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Sounds great! What CD ROM are you using and what
is M.O.S.T.? Does your PRG work with MultiTOS, Brian?

<[Brian] B.GRIER> That's about it. Except if this goes well I'll
be making a verson for Compton's Multi-Media encyclopedia.
M.O.S.T. is Multiple Operating System Technology.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> What CD are you using, Brian? Does your program
run under MulitTOS?

<[Brian] B.GRIER> If you mean drive I have a Chinon 431 (from
TOAD) and an NEC-85

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Let's move on to Lorne White.

<[Lorne] L.WHITE17> Thanks, As a would be developer, I would like
to know more about getting into a CD ROM type application
development..

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Greg, would you like to answer Lorne's question?

<GREG> Once you get your application running on the very big hard
disk you can approach one of the many CD publishers about getting
a master done. The big problem has been the minimums required by
most publishers and pressers.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Lorne, any followup?

<[Lorne] L.WHITE17> Yes please. I've always presumed that the
shell program that drives the application could be tricky since
it's very much set up for the other platform. True of False.

<GREG> False. A CD looks like a VERY BIG hard disc to the OS

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Anything else, Lorne?

<[Lorne] L.WHITE17> But doesn't the interface have to be
consistent across platforms ??

<GREG> The CD can be a Mac CD, A PC CD. An Atari CD or cross-
platform. You decide what you want it to run on. The media itself
is very much cross-platform.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Greg, you mentioned minimums for pressing CD's but
I thought PHOTO CD was economically feasible? How does one get
PHOTO CD's done?

<GREG> All you do is take a roll of film to Walmart and tell them
PCD please. Getting multiple copies pressed is not the same as
making a one-of disc.

<JOHN.KING.T> I am about to get a CDROM drive for my TT. Is a
Double Speed unit fast "enuf" or should I consider a triple or
quad unit? This unit would be SCSI and might be a dual use unit
with my PC laptop for tax data research. GA

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Maybe David Troy would like to handle that one.

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> Sure... The double speed drives are
pretty quick. Triple speed is even better though [450K/sec vs.
300K/sec & 150 with single speed.

<JOHN.KING.T> Price is not a problem. Are the faster units worth
the extra price?

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> I would say that with the new technology
coming out, and if you don't mind spending the extra bucks
(approximately $100-$150), it might be a wise choice. Things are
always going to need to be faster, wider, lower, longer, etc. :)
And we sell double and triple speed NEC units at decent prices.

<JOHN.KING.T> That is cheap for the extra speed. Thanks for the
suggestions.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Roger Burrows would like to add to Dave's
answer...

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> Yes ... I agree with Dave. If you can afford
it, go for the fastest. But I think the speed difference from
single to double is enough for most of us poorer folks.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Roger, I know you are working on ExtenDOS. What speed units
have you tested ?

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> So far, single and double. Tintin is looking at a triplespeed, so I may get to test on
that soon .

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> I think that that is very fair... Double
speed is pretty nice, but triple is maybe a little more future
oriented. I am tickled pink with the double speed drive myself. :)

I am used to the old 150K/sec 380ms crawlers. 200ms with 300K/sec
seems like a speed demon. <ga>

<[HoST] ST.LOU> I'll take that crawler off your hands :-)

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> I got plenty of 'em... :)

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Next we have Sean Dougherty from Two Worlds
Publishing.

<[Sean@TWP] P-DIRECT> Right now, the uses of CD-ROM seem fairly
limited to the home user. Could one of you go over a few of the
more exciting practical things one can do with CD-ROM, just to
help convince people they need one? (this isn't prompted, I
swear!) GA

<GREG> DTP is a compelling reason. I have a CD with a couple
hundred meg of clip art. Corel has several thousand images
available now with more planned. The new Gemini CD has fonts ready
to go. Animations like FLI are fun to view. Photo CD brings your
images home and makes them personal.

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> The secret to CD-ROM on the Atari is
finding applications which are not platform specific, as Greg
said. CD-ROM is very much a data storage medium and just as your
hard drive holds data files that your favorite programs can use,
so can a CD ROM. The only catch is that you don't get to write to
the CD ROM yourself, the way you can with a hard drive. So you are
challenged to find CD TOAD-SERV. ROM's that already have data that
your programme actually use. I think that Photo CD is a very
exciting technology for CD-ROM on the Atari, as well as the
potential for clip art, fonts, sound files (.WAV on Falcon!!), the
new Atari GEMINI CD ROM.

There are also lots of CD ROMS available with graphic images in
GIF format, soon JPG. format will become prevalent (are the
corel's JPG?) and the encyclopedia for the Compton's stuff from
Brian. Pretty exciting stuff. [ga]

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Mike Fulton is here and I know there was supposed
to be a CD DEV pack. Mike, can you comment?

<MIKE-FULTON> Well, as you said, I have been working on an Atari
Developer CDROM for several months now. Unfortunately, the
collecting of software and other files (shareware and PD stuff) is
the least of the whole project. One of the big bottlenecks has
been the editing and rewriting of Atari's developer documentation.
I've been working on putting it all (or as much as possible) into
an online-readable format. And this involves updating old
documentation, and a _lot_ of editing. It's taken a lot longer
than I originally anticipated. It's not hard, per se, just time
consuming. But it's coming along nicely and I do hope to have it
done soon. In a lot of ways, it would be a lot easier to write a
program to display and otherwise deal with an existing database
(like some of the online encyclopedias and so forth).

<[HoST] ST.LOU> From what I saw at Las Vegas Comdex, these DEV
CD's have arrived in force. Good luck getting finished, Mike. Rob
Sattler is next...

<[Rob] R.SATTLER> Hello everyone, this is some great stuff! Q- Can
you get by without MultiTOS?

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Rob, I will let Roger Burrows answer that one.

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> Yes, you can ... that's what ExtenDOS does.
It's designed for those people who don't need all the function of
MultiTOS and/or have maybe a small hardware config. It's pretty
straight forward to use, and works with pretty much any drive.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> What about Falcon and PHOTO CD support, Roger?

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> Falcon support is on its way, I hope by the
weekend. Photo CD is in the plans ... I only just got a pCD drive
to test with.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Mike Allen is next.

<MIKE-ALLEN> First let me say that the developments from Roger and
Brian are exciting! These apps for the Falcon are all very nice,
but how about us non-Falcon types? What I'd like to know is can I
use a CD on my MSTe with an older ICD HA (pre AdSCSI). Would I
only be able to read files, etc or is there some way I can look at
photo-cds too?

<GREG> Not Yet Mike. The Photo Cd process looks best with lots of
color. We have samples of Photo CD to SPC up on GEnie. They were
done with DMJ-GIF You can convert a PCD to other formats. You see
it best in true color. Studio Photo will run on an ST. All you
need is for Roger to make a PCD driver for you.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Roger, is there anyway to use ExtenDOS with the
ICD HA setup? Dave, do you have any configs for Mike?

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> You can attach a CD ROM drive to an ICD
host but I don't know about the pre-AdSCSI models. ICD's Link &
Pro utilities comes with a DMA 0-7 CD ROM driver for Metados.

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> ExtenDOS on the ST needs an ICD AdSCSI or
equivalent.

<[Rob] R.SATTLER> Is Extendos available now? How much?

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> Yes, available now, currently direct mail
from me, hopefully soon at your friendly Atari mail-order dealer.
Re price: $19.95 including everything (US$ in US, Cdn$ in Canada)
Ontario residents, add sales tax (sorry).

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> Toad Computers will be talking to Roger
about ExtenDOS. :)

<[Tintin] C.LABELLE> I noticed TOAD advertises NEC 3xp. Have they
been tested with Falcon and XFS?

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> Yes, but right now MultiSession support
won't work with the NEC drives. They DO support single session
Photo CD's with the XFS driver. The problem is not, of course, in
the drive. They are fully multisession. The XFS driver, however,
doesn't understand NEC multisession right now. The only drive that
the XFS driver works with in multisession is the Toshiba 3401,
which is a double speed drive and can be expensive. I know that
Greg @ It's all relative is working on modifying the driver to
support multisession on a wider variety of drives, especially the
NEC. So all this means is that you would be restricted, right now,
to Photo CD's with only one directory (development cycle) right
now, but this is changing quickly. And of course all other CD's
work fine.

<[Tintin] C.LABELLE> OK so this denies earlier reports that the
3xp were not working with Falcon.

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> I have not had problems, but it does seem
to be very driver related. There are many drivers out there, even
among XFS varieties (2 or 3 versions).

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Next we have Charles Smeton of NewSTar Technology

<C.S.SMETON> I wanted to ask about ExtendDOS and the Falcon, but
this was already answered. So I will ask a bit about how ExtendDOS
works, i.e. how is it installed, how does it differ from MetaDOS,
etc.

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> OK, well the basic idea is exactly the same
as MetaDOS, that is, there's a supervisor (ExtenDOS) that traps
the necessary system calls then there are drivers that deal with
hardware and file systems. I have another driver written right
now, and am working on still others. If they work out, they may be
of more limited interest than the CD-ROM.

<C.S.SMETON> Do you need any Falcon beta testers? ;-)

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> It depends :-) probably not, I have a
volunteer in the Ottawa area, and believe me it's tough debugging
hardware-level code over the phone!

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Thanks Roger and Charles. Our next question comes
from Mario Georgiou at DMC Publishing.

<[mario] DMCPUBLISH> Hello all, I would like to know what formats
are currently supported and whether you plan to support CDI and
the new Pro PCD.

<GREG> We will have Portfolio format this summer. I just got a
mailing from Kodak last week on the update. The PRO format is
tough. Files are 64 meg uncompressed. This is what you call BIG.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Whew!

<GREG> The Portfolio format will have many discs published for it.

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> That's where you need more memory for the
falcon... 14MB gets tight.

<[mario] DMCPUBLISH> Big but needed, I look forward to replacing
my MetaDOS ... Good luck

<[Nima Montase] S.FARSHIDGH> Well, it's been about 30 mins now,
but I was just going to add thatI was just going to add that you
can also use Audio CDs on your system, as another reason to buy a
CDROM!

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> Oh yeah - you can.. Good point. Lots of
PD players are available.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> I would like to hear more specs, Nima.

<[Nima Montase] S.FARSHIDGH> Well, right now you can play AUDIO
CDs on all ATARI systems (did the Falcon one

<[HoST] ST.LOU> What is your software?

** <[Nima Montase] S.FARSHIDGH> ** disconnected

<GREG> Nima is the author of CD_AUD20 available as shareware here
on GEnie. He is working on a Falcon CD audio player too but work
is proceeding slowly as he doesn't have a test suystem. Watch for
something in the next couple of weeks though. And if you are using
his CD player, send in the registration.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Nima is back. Do you have more to comment, Nima?

<S.FARSHIDGH> As I was saying, (Greg, did the Falcon AUD CD work
fine?)

<GREG> NOT yet

<S.FARSHIDGH> Anyways, the Audio CD supports all ATARI ST/TTs now,
it has play, stop, pause, track with the option of playing
random/programmable tracks, fast forward and rewind, eject, and
also the capability of taking external data files (which is fully
configurable) for any non SCSI II compliant CD ROMs. It should
work fine on any CDROM that supports the SCSI II commands, I have
also include a almost fully functional data file for NEC drives
(older ones, the SCSI II not compliant ones), I am just waiting
for some users' feedback!

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> Does the CD audio spec allow for playing
digital data backwards, or do you always have to play forward from
a fixed point on the disk?

<S.FARSHIDGH> Yes, you can go back and forth either by passing
along which track # you want or using the up and down option which
moves the song up or down!

<[Dr. Bob] W.PARKS3> First, I'd like to thank Charles for so
accurately asking _MY_ question. <grin> Where can one find out
more about ExtenDOS? I don't dislike MultiTos but I'd rather not
have to add another level between the OS and a CD? Does it support
a variety of CD-ROMS? etc.

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> I posted a notice in one of the conferences
recently. Yes, ExtenDOS should support any SCSI CD-ROM drive. It's
available mail-order direct from me, or hopefully soon from TOAD.

<[Dr. Bob] W.PARKS3> Ok. The price is very nice - that doesn't
bother me. What concerns me is when I start scratching my head
wondering why the CDROM won't work or what. Does it have some
technical documentation?

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> It comes with a manual, and I think it covers
everything you need and I'm available by phone or via GEnie if
that doesn't do it.

<[Dr. Bob] W.PARKS3> Ok, thanks- sounds good! <we now return you
to...>

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Thanks Roger and Doc. Rob Sattler has our last
question.

<[Rob] R.SATTLER> I'm a Falcon user and own a Toshiba 3401b, but I
can't seem to get it to handle a driver porperly. I understand
Atari has a driver, how can I get it? Also, what would be better
to use? AHDI, or ICD-Pro bootware?

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Who wants it?

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Everyone does :-)  OK, one at a time. Mike
Fulton...

<MIKE-FULTON> The CDROM driver is independent of the hard disk
software. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if you use Atari's
hard disk driver or ICD's. Theoretically, a CDROM driver could
link in with a hard disk driver, but that's not the way that the
MetaDOS or MiNT XFS drivers work.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> GREG is next, then Roger then Brian.

<[Rob] R.SATTLER> OK, but you do need either extendos or multitos?

<GREG> The version of the XFS driver we ship will all our Photo CD
products is the most current XFS for MultiTOS and works quite well
with all our suggested drives.

<[Roger] R.BURROWS1> Basically, you need ExtenDOS or MultiTOS ...
At the moment, ExtenDOS doesn't handle Falcon ... But that should
be fixed in a week.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Brian, anything to add?

<[Brian] B.GRIER> According to howard at ICD they are having problems with
Atari's CD-ROM XFS driver and their software on the Falcon.

If you need a CD-Rom driver that works with ALL Atari computers,
but does not yet support Photo-CD you'll probably need ExtenDOS or
my CD ROM XFS driver that's works on all computers (I wrote it
because last year I couldn't find a driver that worked on the SCSI
port of my TT :( <ga>

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> We have not had a problem using ICD Pro &
the Atari XFS?

<GREG> ICD is shipping an older version

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> It seems to work fine.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Dave, thank you for coming tonight. Would you like
to make any closing comments?

<[Dave Troy] TOAD-SERV.> Just to thank everyone for their interest
in CD ROM. It's a new and exciting technology, and I hope that
everyone gets involved with it so we can build the critical mass
necessary to get some apps together. The Gemini CD ROM is selling
great! I think that's a good sign. Thanks again. <ga>

<[HoST] ST.LOU> You're welcome. Greg Kopchak, thank you for
organizing the group and getting everyone here tonight. Any
closing comments?

<GREG> Thanks goes to Rene Guimont and Rene Tremblay for providing
the Gemini CD. As the conference was on tonight I got an Airborne
package from our German publisher, totronic. Watch for an
announcement shortly.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Sounds exciting.

<GREG> I would also like to post some info on the Gemini CD.

Walnut Creek CDROM announces the release of the GEMini CDROM for
Atari Computers. The CDROM contains 616 MB, and 2872 public domain
programs, shareware programs and commercial demos for the Atari
ST, TT, and Falcon Computers plus a section for the Portfolio
palmtop computer. It also contains text and graphics for the Lynx
and Jaguar video game systems.

The GEMini CDROM is set up in a logical tree structure which
simpifies seaching for and running the programs. You can find
files in areas such as accessories, archives, astronomy, database,
fonts, games, GNU, programming, screeen savers, virus , text
editors, utilities, etc.

It includes 50 megabytes of games and entertainment software. For
the desktop publisher, it contains 15 megabytes of fonts. Many
programs include source code. All programs may be run directly
from the CDROM so there is no need to decompress onto the hard
drive in order to use the files. Each directory contains an index
and a list of files to make it easier for a user to locate a file.

<[HoST] ST.LOU> Greg, thanks again to you and your guests. Mike
Fulton, Roger Burrows, Brian Grier, S.Fardishgh, Dave Troy, Damien
Jones. We really appreciate the time and are keenly interested in
this new era for our Atari Computers. Good night.


/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\

The Atari ST RoundTable hosts real time conferences on Sunday
(HelpDesk) at 9:00 p.m. EST, Monday (DTP/Graphics) and Wednesday
(Open House) at 10:00 p.m. each week.

Additonal conferences include the Programming RTC on the first and
third Thursday of each month at 9:00 p.m. EST and Dateline Atari
with Bob Brodie on the first Friday of the month at 10:00 p.m.
EST.

All formal conferences with guest speakers have formally recorded
transcripts available for download in Library 13.