Macintosh Animation Showcase/Macintosh Animation Showcase CD-ROM.iso/FORUM/178-213

Text File | 1988-04-04 | 22.1 KB | 618 lines | [TEXT/MSWD]

#: 178 S1/General Information
    21-Mar-88  16:26:49
Sb: #New member
Fm: Brian Barjenbruch 71251,2716
To: All

I'm sort of new here, and I think this might be a neat idea...I hear that Apple
has a CD-ROM drive out.  Has anyone had a chance to use it yet?  It works on
the //GS, doesn't it?

           Any info would help.........................Brian

1 Reply


#: 179 S3/CDROM Applications
    21-Mar-88  17:01:59
Sb: #66-#Howdy!
Fm: George Brickner 70040,104
To: john ferguson 70205,1216 (X)

  Actually, John, I don't know how the images are stored. The image scanning is
being done by one company and the image decompressing is being done by an IBM
supplied program.
        Geo

1 Reply


#: 180 S3/CDROM Applications
    21-Mar-88  17:03:39
Sb: #70-Howdy!
Fm: George Brickner 70040,104
To: Eric Carter 75206,1625

  Eric, the Online board is strictly a SCSI interface to the CD-ROM drives. All
decompressing is done by IBM software. The image scanning is being done by a
third party.
        Geo



#: 181 S1/General Information
    21-Mar-88  18:45:57
Sb: #122-New Member
Fm: Ron Fortunato 76703,4306
To: steve michel 70611,1215 (X)

Hi Steve!

   Most interesting that I just picked up my first copy of CD-ROM Review this
afternoon!

I am also working with Hypercard/Macs in a rather interesting environment: the
first high school student-run spaceflight project. My students are designing,
building, and testing an experiment which will fly on a shuttle in about 1 1/2
years. I would be interested in learning about current technology for
Mac/Hypercard/CD-ROM to integrate into our program. I'm also anxious to get
into this first issue (for me). How long have you been out?

   Ron



#: 182 S3/CDROM Applications
    21-Mar-88  18:51:55
Sb: Amiga CD-ROM
Fm: Brendan Pratt -Australia 72757,3043
To: all

Hi there,what i am most interested in in the CD-ROM area,is the development of
a CD-ROM for the Amiga range of computers.No doubt with a standard read for
CD-ROM,there will just need to be a interface (Hardware/Software). I'm sure a
number of people will be interested in finding out about this new technology
for their own Amiga's

C u laitr

Brendan Pratt - Australia



#: 183 S1/General Information
    21-Mar-88  20:17:29
Sb: Maxtor Worm
Fm: Eddie Grisolia 75206,1417
To: all

Hi all !
   This is going to be a very good forum...glad to be part of it. I work for a
system's integrator and have a need for a CDROM for large database storage.
Does anyone have any experience with the Maxtor 800mb Worm?  Do they
manufacture it, or is a Hitachi? I would appreciate any comments or
recommendations. By the way, it will be installed in a IBM-AT shop . Thanks
again. Eddie.



#: 184 S1/General Information
    21-Mar-88  20:34:37
Sb: #172-New Member
Fm: Kevin Conley 73336,1340
To: Reuben Mezrich 72356,252 (X)

Our applications all deal with IBM machines so I do not know of any optical
disk drivers for the Mac.  We use SCSI to talk to the drives on a low level.
If you have the time to learn SCSI you could buy a SCSI board and write your
own but thats not the most fun thing to do. I will leave a message on this
forum if I do run across anything. Sorry I could not be of more help.



#: 185 S1/General Information
    21-Mar-88  20:46:21
Sb: #69-WORM Drive Software
Fm: Kevin Conley 73336,1340
To: JASON LOVEN 72140,65

I have not used the Maxtor drives before but I have used several drives and
have used drivers that emulate DOS and drivers that are very low level leaving
me to write the optical disk management software.  I like to have total control
of the management of the optical drives because I can design the optical disks
to the application but it requires you to write most of the software.  I am
using LMS-1200 drives that store 1 gig per side.  I have had goo results with
the drives and driver.  You should call Maxtor and ask for all companies who
are writting drivers for the drive. They should be able to give you a good
list,  be sure to ask about what ones are the best and have the most
installations.  Good luck with the devel.



#: 186 S4/Adding CDROM Access
    21-Mar-88  20:53:55
Sb: #88-New Member
Fm: Kevin Conley 73336,1340
To: Joshua Beall 71410,1411 (X)

I have had dealings with a company in Concord, Ca that should have what you are
looking for.  The company is Optical Storage Solutions, inc.  The have a
optical drive system that will plug into a LAN system and look and act like a
hard drive.  The system supports several different drives and media.  Contact
Roy Slicker or Brad Bakker of OSS and tell them I passed you on.  They will
work hard for you and provide very good support. Kevin Conley.



#: 187 S3/CDROM Applications
    21-Mar-88  21:49:42
Sb: #179-Howdy!
Fm: john ferguson 70205,1216
To: George Brickner 70040,104

I guess I would assume that the images will be some sort of compressed bit map.
Probably the best way to get the job done initially.  I guess I'd hoped that
they might have been vecotrized but I can appreciate why it would be done the
way I've inferred.  thx...



#: 188 S1/General Information
    21-Mar-88  21:56:54
Sb: #139-CD ROM
Fm: JOHN CRAFT 71465,520
To: Ron Johnson 70116,1416

NO, THERE IS NO EXPANSION FOR SUCH ITEMS ON THE M-100, THERE IS NO CURRENT
PORTABLE IN THE TANDY LINE WHICH HAS THAT CAPABILTY..... JOHN CRAFT
[phone] 71465,520



#: 189 S1/General Information
    21-Mar-88  22:06:45
Sb: #Introduction
Fm: Phil Hutcheson 72376,1745
To: ALL

Hi! I'm Phil Hutcheson, I'm from Atlanta, GA. I've been using an Amdek
Laserdrive-1 for about three months. So far the only CDROM I have is Microsoft
Bookshelf. I am interested in obtaining other discs but the ffew I've seen are
price very high. Any suggestion of scources?
 Also there is a problem with my drive. Whenever I first start the computer I
get an abort, retry, ignore message when the CDROM is first accessed. If I just
give a retry it works fine then and all times after The problem is not anything
serious just annoying. Does anyone have any suggestions to eliminate this?
Thanks,
                   Phil Hutcheson

2 Replies


#: 190 S4/Adding CDROM Access
    21-Mar-88  22:39:30
Sb: #128-CDROM-RBBS INTERFACE
Fm: herman hazenberg 70217,2330
To: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271

thank you for your reply.  i'm running rbbs bulletin board system version 15.1c
and having some problems with the interfaceing so far the disk works fine but
the board won't download from the cd... still working on the problem.. also the
high serra format would be best as at present the pc sig doesn't conform to
those standards so anythin i wish to use ms bookshelf i need to reboot so then
i can use the high serra format disks.. it took me a while to figure that one
out as the pc sig disk said nothing about formats.  also the only restrictions
that they place on the disk for bbs is that you do not charge a access fee for
the files  but a user fee , not to exceed $50/year , is acceptable keeep me
posted on your disk, i'm always open for new products. thanks again   herm



#: 191 S3/CDROM Applications
    21-Mar-88  23:31:00
Sb: #155-CD ROM proposals
Fm: Joel Nagy 76701,232
To: Edward Schneider 76137,572 (X)

Hello Ed ---

I think your original question about approaching a publisher is a good one
since I'm especially interested in how we're going to get the best print
resources converted to CDROM as soon as possible.

The few publishers I've talked to are well aware of optical media. The decision
to release a title, new or old, in this form seems to depend primarily on the
answers to these questions (and perhaps others):

1) WHAT IS THE SIZE OF THE MARKET?... by which they mean for this title
   in this medium... (I got one long albeit patient explanation of why
   no matter how large the installed base of drives, the demographics
   of drive owners and their readers were unlikely to coincide!)

2) WILL SALES IN THIS MEDIUM SUPPLANT PRINT SALES?... I suppose they
   wouldn't mind as much if the margin on discs is better.

3) HOW MUCH VALUE CAN BE ADDED THROUGH THE CAPABILITIES OF THE MEDIA?
   A good example would be random access, and (as someone else said)
   digital audio.

The answer to your question is to bring them the answers... whether you're
trying to license the Grove Dictionary to publish on CDROM yourself... or just
trying to convince them to do so.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this... as well as your progress if you
do decide to pitch the publisher with your idea.

Best --- Joel Nagy




#: 192 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  00:05:36
Sb: #189-Introduction
Fm: Joel Nagy 76701,232
To: Phil Hutcheson 72376,1745

Hello Phil... Welcome to the CDROM Forum! I'm surprised you didn't get a disc
called "The CD-ROM Sampler" free with your LaserDrive-1... or at least a reply
card to request your copy... I think most Amdek dealers have had one or the
other since last fall. It's a showcase of different things: a multi-media piece
on CDROM technology with Q&A, a big slug of messages from another Forum here on
CompuServe harnessed to a search engine, a prototype electronic catalog and
about fifty demo software packages provided by publishers like Microsoft &
Electronic Arts. I've seen it advertised for $49, which isn't bad for CDROM,
but free is better yet! I know all this because Discovery Systems (where I
work) produced and manufactured the disc. If it sounds good to you, check to
see if the reply card got jammed into your Amdek manual... otherwise, drop me a
line here and I'll find out how to get you a copy.                  --- Joel
Nagy


#: 193 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  00:35:52
Sb: #178-New member
Fm: Joel Nagy 76701,232
To: Brian Barjenbruch 71251,2716 (X)

Hello Brian --Thanks for joining the CDROM Forum! Yes... Apple has announced a
drive called the AppleCD SC. Yes... it's supposed to work on a //GS provided
you have the newest version (Rev.C?) of the SCSI adapter in your system. If
not, that's about $300 I think... haven't heard anything about upgrades. For
more details, you may want to read Apple's press release from the Microsoft
Conference earlier this month... it's in Data Library 1 with the filename
APCDSC.PR.  Where I work we've had opportunity to run the drives but so far
only on the Mac SE and Mac II so I can't comment on the //GS configuration.
Hope you'll find this... and the Forum... helpful!         --- Joel Nagy



#: 194 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  02:19:32
Sb: #189-Introduction
Fm: Jonathan L. Mayo 72276,2276
To: Phil Hutcheson 72376,1745

Phil:
  You might want to consider Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia. I bought it
along with Bookshelf when I first got my CD-ROM, and I think it was a good
investment.  Grolier's costs about $250.  Check with Compact Disc Products
(that's where I got my system) as one possible source.
  I also have the Discovery Systems demo.  It's well worth the effort to get a
copy - even if you only have CGA graphics.



#: 195 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  02:44:56
Sb: #New Member
Fm: Steve Slater 73170,1034
To: Sysop (X)

I am working as a consultant in Maui, Hawaii.  We are 3 people in our com-
 pany, and are interested in keeping up with as much as possible. Our business
centers around 286 and 386 machines, training, service I am very interested in
education.  I have also been involved in Holography for the last eight years,
with a little touch of experience in computer generated holograms.  CDRom is a
fundamental ppart of computer generation.

1 Reply


#: 196 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  04:08:17
Sb: Introduction..New Member
Fm: John L. Sands 73647,1637
To: Sysop et al (X)

     Greetings fellow kids! My name is John Sands and I hail from an area
 of Los Angeles known as The San Fernando Valley. After many years of working
as an audio and video engineer, I have just found a desire to get involved in
CD-Rom as a Systems Integrator. I have been able to scrounge up a 286 based
computer, 2 Hitachi CD-ROM external drives, and a Meridian Data cdpublisher.
Now comes the fun part...going out and drumming up my first client.
     My first problem is data entry. I do not plan to do manual entry, nor do I
plan to only publish those public domain databases that come on 9 track ansi
tape. I am now searching for the best case scanner or scanners. I plan to scan
using OCR, scan images, and even get into vector scanning for CAD and Mapware.
     The good news is that my part of the valley is loaded with hi-tech
aerospace, communications, and medical based companies that are all potential
clients for a systems consultant in CD-ROM technology
     If anyone out there has any suggestions for scanner hardware, I would
enjoy reading about it.
     This forum will help all of us who have been fighting for this new
technology, and will stimulate interest, and serve to introduce the people with
applications, with the engineers and programmers who can bring forth the
systems.

     Proud to be a new member of your forum, I remain,

          John L. Sands



#: 197 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  09:21:58
Sb: Greetings
Fm: Dennis Tanner 70007,2011
To: Michael Feldman 70300,206 (X)

Hello, Mike. I believe we met at the CD-ROM conference. Glad you're on the
forum. --Dennis Tanner    Radio Shack Computer Applications



#: 198 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  09:27:51
Sb: #162-New Member
Fm: Dennis Tanner 70007,2011
To: steve michel 70611,1215

Hello. I'm biased, but I thought Radio Shack's announcement that the Hitachi
CD-ROM drive is now available through about 7000 outlets was pretty important.
--Dennis Tanner



#: 199 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  14:09:54
Sb: #195-New Member
Fm: Joel Nagy 76701,232
To: Steve Slater 73170,1034

Hello Steve...

Welcome to the CDROM Forum! We hope that you'll find a lot to interest and
inform you here.

CDROM can certainly play a major role in training and education at every
level... something that Apple's announcement of a drive should boost
considerably given their strong position in the educational world. As an
installed base of drives develops, the market for multi-media CDROM training
discs, especially for computer hardware and software products, should be
considerable. Several instructional designers I've talked to see CDROM as their
next stop after videodisc.

I'd be interested to hear more about your holography experience, especially the
computer aspects. It's good to have you on-board!

--- Joel Nagy



#: 200 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  16:52:48
Sb: amiga 1000
Fm: steve small 71330,255
To: all

As an Amiga 1000 owner, I have some interest in the availability of CD Rom for
the Amiga. Any help in getting me going will be appreciated.



#: 201 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  18:46:56
Sb: Sales Estimates
Fm: Jonathan L. Mayo 72276,2276
To: All

  Does anyone have any reliable estimates of the number of CD-ROM drives sold
for microcomputer applications?  Also, how about for titles such as Bookshelf
and Grolier's Encyclopedia?
  Thanks
#: 202 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  21:09:19
Sb: Scanners
Fm: Mark Schneider 71330,467
To: John L. Sands 73647,1637

   John - If you're going to scan typeset material, the cheapest machine I've
read about is the Kurzweil Discover, which has it's own processor and memory
and artificial intelligence based OCR firmware.  It is limited by lack of a
flatbed, however, so bound material must be xeroxed and fed one sheet at a time
or stacked in a sheet feeder.  It is supposed to do 300 dpi graphics too. It
lists for $10,000 and goes up to about $12,000 for 2mb RAM.
   For $20,000 list you can get the Kurzweil 4000, reliable, fast, with 10mb
hard disk, dedicated terminal, processor and memory. It is trainable, but does
not use A.I. like the Discover.
   For $38,000 list you can buy the Palantir Compound Document Processor, which
reads everything and anything in one pass with no training, and will interface
to digitizers and ethernet.
   For somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 you can get a Howtek color scanner,
which requires the $2,000 Targa 16 video board.
   For 300 dpi graphics and typewritten (as opposed to typeset) material, there
are scanners in the under $1000 to about $3000 range from companies like
Datacopy, Dest and Microtek.  Flagstaff Engineering, of Flagstaff AZ, claims in
its ads that they have a software package that will allow these scanners to
read typeset.
   Keep me posted on your own efforts to learn more in this area.



#: 203 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  21:23:04
Sb: Scanners
Fm: Mark Schneider 71330,467
To: John L. Sands 73647,1637

P.S. - The Palantir C.D.C. also lacks a flatbed unfortunately.



#: 204 S3/CDROM Applications
    22-Mar-88  23:15:29
Sb: CDROM
Fm: tony reeves 76137,1424
To: all

Hello all CDROM people! I just wanted to drop in and say its great that there
is a forum for this now. I work at Hughes Aircraft Company in n Southern Calif.
I am currently on a project that has us scanning all our company policies and
procedures into a machine format then uploading them to a IBM 4381 VM/CMS
machine. Our next goal on this project is to move away from the mainframe to a
CDROM application of the system. We are using a Stairs/DCF/ISPF mainframe look
up now. We plan to use smaller faster local processors and CDROMS in the next
version. I'd Be real interested in hearing of CDROM stories in the area of text
storage and retreival. Please leave messages here or you can call my BBS (I run
one, have since 1980) and talk about CDROM's at 213-374-7929



#: 205 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  23:34:21
Sb: #ADMISSION
Fm: JOSEPH KOSCIELNIAK 73320,1210
To: ALL

I HAVE JOINED THE CDROM FORUM TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT IN THE
COMPUTER WORLD. I AM AN ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON, WHO HAS MANY INTERESTSTS AND FEEL
THIS MAY BE USEFUL FOR INFORMATION STORAGE AND USE

1 Reply


#: 206 S3/CDROM Applications
    22-Mar-88  23:41:39
Sb: cdrom
Fm: sherwood egbert 71171,1774
To: all

hi , i work for a direct mail marketing agengy in los angeles we currently run
2 ibm 4341 mainframes and one 386 compac computer. we are looking at
telemarketing using the 386 to recieve databases over the phone line. the
problem lies in dos not being able to go over the 32 meg limit. the question is
does cdrom with its high memory capabilities solve this or is there a way to
bring in a data base on the telecomunications that exceed the 32 megs in dos ?,
using the 386 machine ?



#: 207 S1/General Information
    22-Mar-88  23:47:44
Sb: #205-ADMISSION
Fm: Mark Schneider 71330,467
To: JOSEPH KOSCIELNIAK 73320,1210

John - U.C.L.A. Medical Center has an extensive image database on optical media
which I think would be very interesting to orthopedic surgeons.  Maybe they're
planning to distribute some of it on CD-ROM? I believe they got it on WORMs.



#: 208 S1/General Information
    23-Mar-88  00:19:18
Sb: W/P SOFTWARE PROGRAMS
Fm: DOMINIC 72117,371
To: ANY MEMBER OF COMPU, SER

MY NAME IS DOMINIC. i I AM SEARCHING FOR A COPY OF MULTIMATE FOR MY PC.  IN
EXCHANGE, I CAN OFFER COPIES OF MICROSOFT, WORDPERFECT, AND WORD STAR 2000



#: 209 S1/General Information
    23-Mar-88  02:01:32
Sb: WORM Drives
Fm: Peter Black 74240,265
To: ALL

Seems to be a fair amount of interest in WORM drives. We recently got one, from
ISI. 100megabytes a side, 65$ media cost. The purpose is to back up our digital
typefont library. That's Xiphias' main business. And to have an archival medium
for our work on the timetable, a CDROM application we are preparing for the MAC
under Hypercard. The WORM will run on an IBM PC, and files transferred over
TOPS. We asked around a bit, and found these to be the crucial issues. 1) how
big is the IBM PC Bus card. 2) how good is the software for copying files, and
other related actvities (ease of use, likelihood of crash, etc.) 3) How costly
is media. Check out the recent review article in BYTE. Very Good.



#: 210 S1/General Information
    23-Mar-88  02:09:34
Sb: Graphics in CDROM
Fm: Peter Black 74240,265
To: ALL

Apart from the desirability of multibit depth graphics there are some serious
problems to consider in the planning of a graphics library for a CD app. First,
what kind of display or displays will the graphics have to be shown on? If they
are bitmap, then what might look good on VGA, won't play on CGA or EGA. Do you
store the same graphics three times for each device? Further, what if you have
a lot of graphics? We are developing an Electronic Yellow Pages system for the
Italian Telephone Company. They have 100,000 advertisers. That's 5.5k per logo
for each advertiser. Not enough for bitmapped graphics. Object oriented
graphics are better, i.e., terser. They also can be scaled to match the
requirements of different displays. To support the resulting needs, we
developed a technology (software) we call BLADE. It takes bitmaps, and converts
them into Postscript. That means lines and curves. It's an alternative, if (and
only if) your graphics are not continuous tone imagery. Graphics are a tough
nut to crack, even in CDROM storage.



#: 211 S1/General Information
    23-Mar-88  02:15:19
Sb: Xiphias stuff
Fm: Peter Black 74240,265
To: All

This in particular for Joel Nagy. Xiphias seems to be doing fine, but it sure
has taken patience. I couldn't get arrested with Time Table for the longest
time. Now it seems to be a reasonably hot commodity. I'm glad Apple finally
announced. It seems to have made the difference. Our announcement of XEARCH was
very well recieved. Check out last weeks Infoworld, and PC WEEK. The phone has
been busy. Also see this months MacWorld, re: Time Table. As regards AIM, we
went through hoops trying to get them interested. I still see them every few
months, but no progress. Also, It is worth noting, no CDI player. Life looks
more promising with Apple and Atari. The future looks very promising with DVI
based technology. Huh?



#: 212 S1/General Information
    23-Mar-88  02:26:58
Sb: #89-New User
Fm: Jim Bellaire 73177,1452
To: Dennis Tanner 70007,2011 (X)

Thanks Dennis.  The only info that the local store (Radio Shack) had was on the
3000 etc.
       -James Bellaire



#: 213 S1/General Information
    23-Mar-88  03:37:51
Sb: #129-New Member
Fm: Tom Hartman 76527,555
To: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271

Thanks Raines..I was hoping CD Rom would turn out to be a great new storage
medium that one could WRITE to, ie hard disks, but maybe someday. This months
MacWorld has a whole primer on it which I intend to read tonight, so maybe I
won't be asking dumb questions much longer!  Thanks, and nice to know you're
here too. --TH /ex