Macintosh Animation Showcase

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#: 603 S1/General Information 04-May-88 14:09:37 Sb: #Holographic Storage Fm: Will Cowman 70003,3254 To: Anyone I realize that this is a bit esoteric, but this is a forum devoted to storage with light. I read a curious statement about holographic storage recently. "one can superimpose any number of holograms on the same piece of film, and then reproduce the images of the original scenes one by one without interference from the others." (Lashley -- 1982, p. 88) How can this be? -and- If it is true, then which variable is changed in order to "step" through the scenes? Just curious, Will 1 Reply #: 604 S1/General Information 04-May-88 18:20:46 Sb: #New member Fm: Len Kaltman, Comstock 71401,216 To: All Hello, My name is Len Kaltman. I am Director of marketing for Comstock Stock Photography. We are producing a CD-ROM (with the help and guidance of Discovery Systems) containing 500 photographs for use with desktop publishing programs. It was mentioned in the May 3rd issue of MacWeek. If you are interested in the disc, or stock photography in general, please don't hesitate to drop me a line. Best regards, Len Kaltman 1 Reply #: 605 S1/General Information 05-May-88 02:03:07 Sb: #603-Holographic Storage Fm: Erik Sea 74170,111 To: Will Cowman 70003,3254 I think it is possible. Recall the circular "blow me a kiss" holographic film which, if rotated, appears to be animated 3D from one film. The position of the observer seems to be the only variable. I have no idea what the technical background for it is. #: 606 S3/CDROM Applications 05-May-88 02:22:26 Sb: PUBLICATIONS ON CDROM Fm: John Ausland 73240,2704 To: Jack Ryan 76164,1273 Thanks for the brochure on your new prices. I have mentioned it on a local bulletin board. I suspect few people here are yet ready to make discs, but some are thinking about it, and it will come. So keep me informed. Are you (or anyone else) familiar with the Alde disc which contains the 1986-87 PRAVDA in English? Does Alde have a COMPUSERVE number? I am eagerly awaiting discs which contain major US newspapers and periodicals, at a reasonable price. I have searched your list but find none. (I am aware of the Daily Oklahoman etc, but I have in mind particularly the New York Times and Washington Post.) What are the prospects? #: 607 S1/General Information 05-May-88 03:29:22 Sb: #592-Ignorant ?s Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: Raymond G. Harder 72160,1373 Ray - I'm just getting into this industry myself, but I guess I supposedly know something, since my company (BMUG) is a CD ROM developer, and I'm doing most of the work. ( :-> ). I'll make a stab at a few of your questions. 1. Yes, current drives can work with Mac and IBM. They need to be SCSI, I believe. Check out one from Toshiba --- I've vaguely heard that it is fast. 2. Search engines vary a lot. There's not much out yet that's universal, though lots have been announced. 3. Beta-test versions of Apple's CDROM driver supposedly supported the "High Sierra (ISO)" format used on most PC stuff, but the release drive is supposedly gonna ship without it, with a free upgrade not long afterwards. 4. MacWeek and Macintosh Today claim that the non-autosave HyperCard (they call it "version 1.2") will be announced on Friday of this week. They say it was shown at last week's Developers conference. I don't know if it is the "main" holdup on HyperCard-based CDROM's... for our product, the BMUG PD ROM(tm), we could have shipped it without a read-only HyperCard, just telling the user to copy the relatively small HyperCard stack, an index file, to hard disk in order to run it. 5. Apple's developer price on their CD ROM drive is $740. Academic price is typically not far from developer price, IF you're at an AUC (Apple University Consortium) school. If not, it's hardly worth it. Shop around. -- Raines Cohen Team BMUG #: 608 S1/General Information 05-May-88 03:30:32 Sb: #491-HyperCard & CDROM Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: Noboru Toyoshima 76662,330 Noburo - We've announced the BMUG PD ROM(tm), our PD library on CD ROM, but it looks like we won't be shipping for about a month. So long as Apple's drives are late, we're OK though. -- Raines / BMUG #: 609 S3/CDROM Applications 05-May-88 03:33:13 Sb: #430-ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: bob helfant 75530,214 Bob - I'm curious about how response has been to a $99 PD disk. We're in that niche on the Macintosh world, and shipping shortly. What market segments are you in? Do you have anybody perceiving it as "too cheap"? -- Raines Cohen / BMUG, Inc. (Berkeley Macintosh Users Group) P.S. Do you guys do anything to promote/license/whatever BBS's who put your disc online? #: 610 S1/General Information 05-May-88 03:36:27 Sb: #604-New member Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: Len Kaltman, Comstock 71401,216 Ken - Welcome to the CDROM forum! I'm always glad to see more fellow "eggs" in the basket --- we're all in this together, establishing a base of titles wide enough to get the consumers to justify the drives. Could you post some product info online? I don't remember much from the MacWeek article, and your product sounds interesting. How close are you to shipping? It looks like our PD ROM(tm) is just around the corner... -- Raines Cohen / Team BMUG #: 611 S1/General Information 05-May-88 03:37:51 Sb: #595-LAW Titles Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: Joel Nagy 76701,232 Joel -] Either your message #595 was cut off after the words "Legal Titles:", or you are implying that their aren't any. Which is it? -- Raines / BMUG While I'm at it, are there any illegal titles out there? <grin> #: 613 S1/General Information 05-May-88 09:25:35 Sb: #598-Microsoft bookshelf Fm: Michael G Reed 71420,1707 To: JIM BESHA 71231,770 Don't know yet whether there are any Bookshelf experts around, but if not I have mine running and may be able to help. If someone else doesn't provide you with the answer, post your config.sys and autoexec.bat contents...I assume something is missing, probably in the A.bat. Awe, what the heck...take a look at mine: In Config... DEVICE = C:\CDROM\AMDEK.SYS /N:1 /D:AMDEKCD In Autoexec... C:\CDROM\MSCDEX.EXE /D:AMDEKCD /M:8 cls C:\CDROM\AUDIOM cls set CDPATH = C:\BOOKSHLF;C:\CDROM;D:\BOOK;D:\SOFTWARE D:\BOOKS I keep the MS Extension stuff in C:\CDROM, and the following Bookshelf files in C:\BOOKSHLF... BOOKMARK.INF BOOKS .EXE BOOKVIRT.MEM BROWSER .OVR CDR .HLP CDR .INS CDR .RES CDR .RSV COLOR .OVR CONFIG .OVR CUSTOM .CLR DEFAULT .CLR DICT .OVR ET .OVR OPTIONS .OVR SETUP .OVR SPELL .OVR SPELL .USR USAGE .OVR WORD .CAP WORDTUTR.BAT ZIP .OVR Help? Let me know as many specifics as possible if it doesn't. -Michael{R} #: 614 S3/CDROM Applications 05-May-88 15:14:19 Sb: CDROM w/Apple gs Fm: dennis Harkins 70014,731 To: ALL Hello! I have a Philips CM100 CD ROM drive and something called a JOHNATHAN card for an Apple that we purchased for a project that didn't work out. I'd love to use the CD ROM drive either with or without the card, but I don't know of anything out there to use with them. Any suggestions? #: 615 S1/General Information 05-May-88 16:23:54 Sb: Op Disk Keynote Speak Fm: Michael Macewich 76267,375 To: Ty Wait 76701,231 I'm trying to put together a technology briefing for the employees in my company. The last one was on desktop publishing. There was a speaker from Gartner Group who lectured on the technology. That was followed by a "vendor" fair where several vendors displayed and demoed their product as people walked from booth to booth. I want to do the same with optical disk storage technology (WORM * and* CD). Can anyone suggest a source for a speaker? --- MACE --- #: 616 S1/General Information 05-May-88 18:56:58 Sb: #610-New member Fm: Len Kaltman, Comstock 71401,216 To: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 Dear Raines, Thanks for your interest. Basically the disc is black and white scans of 449 high quality photos which are sold by my company, Comstock, via our stock photography catalog. These are some of the best, and most widely used photos from our library of over 1 million images. The disc will be available on or about July 1. It will cost $500, but we are taking "pre-release" orders, including ten day trial period for $250. Reaction to the initial relase in MacWeek has been great, and we anticipate our disc will be the first of many photo discs to appear on the market. What makes this disc particularly useful, is that if and when a user wants to go to high quality color repro, a color duplicate is available at regular reproduction fees. We are also coming out with other discs, which will be along more specific subject lines, such as Religion, Travel, People, Medical, etc. If you'd like an info-kit, drop me a line. Again, thanks for your interest. Regards, Len Kaltman #: 617 S1/General Information 05-May-88 19:35:52 Sb: #582-#kurzweil Fm: John McCormick 76360,44 To: Mark Schneider 71330,467 (X) Good luck, I certainly didn't want to stop your efforts. For the volume of text you will need to scan, the Kurzweil is not practical you would have to cut all the pages out of the books, then feed them one at a time through the scanner because it doesn't handle stacks well at all. Scanning time is about 2 minutes for a complex document on teh first page, with subsequent pages scanning about twice as fast. It doesn't take much arithmetic to see that a 500 page law book will take a bit of time to scan. There are faster and much more expensive scanners like the Palantinxxx that was Palantir which is also sold by XEROX/Kurzweil as a VAR. Something in that line might be more practical. Have you investigated to see if the Archives or Lib of Congress is doing anything on this line in the public domain? 1 Reply #: 618 S3/CDROM Applications 05-May-88 20:02:38 Sb: #501-OED CROM Fm: Earle Robinson 70135,141 To: J.S. Frentzen 76117,2127 It does seem odd, but given the fact that they also have the even odder policy of offering reimbursement only if you haven't even opened up the package, I imagine that quite a few people are unwilling to risk that kind of money without even knowing how capable the software is. -er #: 619 S1/General Information 05-May-88 20:50:51 Sb: #603-Holographic Storage Fm: Reuben Mezrich 72356,252 To: Will Cowman 70003,3254 It's true, but the number of separate images that can be stored is limited by the dynamic range of the film. Holographic images are created by two (or more) separate coherent, monochromatic beams of light that are incident on, and interfere at, a piece of high resolution film (or other optical storage medium). When you go through the physics (which I had the strength to do when I was younger), you find that the signal on the film is the Fourier Transform of the object (i.e the thing whose image you are trying to store), but it is on a "carrier" (spatial frequency) that is determined by the angular separation between the object and a reference beam. By changing the carrier frequency on sucessive images you can separately store and reconstruct the images. You can keep storing images till the film darkens (each separate exposure darkens the film a little -- or changes the storage mediums thickness -- or whatever physical thing you are doing to the storage medium to store the image -- it turns out there are lots of ways to store an image, some of which I invented myself in the "good old days") untill you can't get any light through. To reconstruct each image separately you can just twist the film or bring in the reference beam at a different angle. Once upon a time a lot of us tried to take advantage of this to make enormous computer storage systems. it almost worked, but lasers weren't good enough and then semiconductors came along. Reuben #: 620 S1/General Information 05-May-88 21:59:42 Sb: #617-kurzweil Fm: Mark Schneider 71330,467 To: John McCormick 76360,44 John, no, I haven't checked any public domain efforts but it sounds like a very good idea. I've drooled over the Palantir for some time now, and was thinking of using it when I really go into production. The Kurzweil would be used merely to construct a prototype on Bernoulli cartridges and for personal use, then hopefully raise capital by showing investors the prototype and buy equipment such as the Palantir, Meridian CD-Publisher, and a 386 or MicroVax to do the job right. Kurzweil 4000 is supposed to be pretty good too, at $20k. Someone says the Palantir will accept a flatbed digitizer as input, are you familiar with that kind of setup? Otherwise, I'd have to rip the books apart or mass photocopy to use the Palantir. By the way, I got a brochure on WordCruncher and although it looks promising, it was sketchy with regard to specs. Is it a fast program? How big a text database will it handle? Does it use a proprietary data file format? Does it allow for proximity searching? Are the screen writes reasonably fast? How much disk space is required for the program? Does it compress data? How large is the index in relation to the text? Thanks once again for everything, Mark /ex #: 621 S1/General Information 05-May-88 22:22:48 Sb: #584-Concordance Fm: Mark Schneider 71330,467 To: Eiichi Hishikawa 76661,132 Thanks for the reference to MEMLANE on IBMSW. From the description posted there, it seems good for small bodies of text, somewhat like the commercial product Gofer, which I have. Unfortunately, I don't know Japanese, and don't know well enough anyone who does to ask them to translate. I'm looking into WordCruncher, Xyindex, AskSam and other programs. Thanks, Mark #: 622 S1/General Information 06-May-88 09:07:45 Sb: #591-DEC RRD50 Fm: Jack Ryan 76164,1273 To: Dale E. Coy 76067,652 The DEC RRD50 drive is an OEM version of the Philips CM100 family. You should be able to install the Philips version of Microsoft Extensions and be able to access the drive for discs that are ISO or High Sierra. I would suspect the interface card is the one that came with the RRD50 from DEC. (DEC sells two versions of the RRD50 - one with a controller card for the microVAX/Q-bus families and a card for IBM PC systems. Both use the same actual CD-ROM drive unit.) The CM100 family has pretty much been superceded by the CM200 drives now available from Philips. It is a single beam player that does not support the presence of audio tracks on the CD-ROM disc. Multimedia discs like Discovery Systems CD-ROM Sampler will not spin up. Its average access times and maximum access time is almost double the time needed by most ewer drives (including Philips' CM200 family). Although slower than the newer drives, it is completely compatible with Microsoft Extensions and should be usable for most applications. Regards... Jack Ryan #: 623 S1/General Information 06-May-88 15:00:58 Sb: New User Fm: Mike Vergara 73547,2070 To: ALL Hi! I'm joining this forum becuase my project manager 'suggested' that I begin to learn more about CD/ROMs, their uses and applications, and maybe a little of their technology. So as a consequence, I'll probably be a 'sponge' for a while, until the company makes a decesion about this newfangled stuff. Thanks! Mike #: 624 S1/General Information 06-May-88 18:24:46 Sb: #615-#Op Disk Keynote Speak Fm: Ty Wait 76701,231 To: Michael Macewich 76267,375 (X) I suggest contacting Jack Ryan at Discovery Systems. He's given a number of presentations himself, and probably knows about other speakers if he can't meet your needs. His user ID is [76164,1273]. -Ty 1 Reply #: 625 S3/CDROM Applications 06-May-88 18:56:50 Sb: #Bureau of Census Disk Fm: Bob Birge 73075,651 To: Sysop (X) I purchased an Amdek/Bookshelf package and subsequently discovered Test Disk No. 1 from the U.S. Bureau of Census. Although the disk is supposed to have been formatted in the High Sierra format, I am unable to access the disk. My question is: has anyone had any experience with Test Disk No. 1 using the CD driver supplied with Bookshelf and, if so, have they been able to get the Test Disk to function. Thanks... 1 Reply #: 626 S1/General Information 06-May-88 19:40:25 Sb: FUTURE CD TECHNOLOGY Fm: HECTOR L. PADRON 73117,1253 To: ALL I'M NEW TO THE CONCEPT OF CD'S AS A FORM OF STORAGE MEDIA IN COMPUTING. WHILE READING ABOUT SCANNING IMAGES FROM A DESKTOP PUBLISHING MAGAZINE, I THOUGHT ABOUT PERHAPS BEING ABLE TO SCAN THE CONTENTS OF MY FILE CABINETS AT WORK AND STORING THEM ON CD. THINKING THIS WAS A GENUINELY GREAT IDEA I REASEARCHED IT AND FOUND THAT I WAS NOT AS CREATIVE AS I THOUGHT I WAS, THIS TOUGHT HAD RAN THROUGH SOMEONE ELSES CPU. IN ANY EVENT, I FOUND OUT THAT CD'S CAN BE WRITTEN ONCE AND READ MANY TIMES(WORM), BUT NOT WRITTEN MANY TIMES AND READ MANY TIMES. MY QUESTION IS: WHEN WILL WRITE MANY TIMES READ MANY TIMES BE AVAILABLE? FURTHER, DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A DATABASE PROGRAM THAT CAN ACCOMPLISH MY "BRIGHT" (HA!HA!) IDEA ONCE THE W.M.R.M. TECHNOLOGY IS AVAILABLE? #: 627 S3/CDROM Applications 06-May-88 20:58:59 Sb: #522-#473 OED Fm: mike obryan 71410,340 To: Eiichi Hishikawa 76661,132 Eiichi, for what it's worth, I'm running the pc-sig cdrom on an AST 286 us using the Amdek (Hitachi) Laserdrive and have had no problems. With the microsoft extensions driver and the setup provided by the amdek software there's not been a hitch. Not aware of anyone running on the IBM system so cannot comment on that hardware. #: 628 S1/General Information 06-May-88 21:04:20 Sb: #607-Ignorant ?s Fm: Raymond G. Harder 72160,1373 To: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 Thanx for the info I understand from Macintosh today that the new HC 1.2 will ship within two weeks and be free for reg owners. I have two disks for CD ROM already and nothing to read them with. The excitement of carrying around these things and saying "you know I have over a hundred volumes here in my hand..." etc. is starting to wear off!! Now I actually wantread them! I also noticed that you are obviouslyuy on the development team there at BMUG and not the sales because you mentioned neither the contents nor the price of your product!!! Thanx #: 630 S1/General Information 06-May-88 23:11:33 Sb: #365-new member Fm: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 To: JOHNNY SEWELL 76701,254 Don't I know you from somewhere? I'd been watching for CDROM info but missed the beginning of this forum. Guess because tapcis always skips "what's new". Finally got to the back page of Online mag today (5-6-88) & promptly joined. Now munching my way thru 300+ messages. Rumors are for Mexican food Monday night (maybe at Tino's in Beautiful Downtown Plano near Grandma's Massage Parlor) Haverland has some info on digitizing photos for the pc's he's bringing me. We've got a CD plant rat here! But they aren't quite to CDROMS yet but planning on it. Orville (Multi-sig rated or ratted) #: 631 S1/General Information 06-May-88 23:22:40 Sb: #DATABASE DEVELOPMENT Fm: RONALD OLDHAM 76214,373 To: ALL HELLO, MY NAME IS RONALD OLDHAM, AND I AM A NEW MEMBER OF THIS FORUM. I AM A CHEMIST WITH CHEMRON INCORPORATED IN SAN ANTONIO, TX. CHEMRON IS INVOLVED IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY. I AM NOW IN CHARGE OF A PROJECT DIRECTED TOWARD THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CDROM DB CONTAINING INFORMATION ABOUT CHEMICAL & PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SUBSTANCES AND DATA ABOUT THE LOCATION OF SOURCES FOR CHEMICAL PRODUCTS. ALL INFORMATION NEEDED FOR THE DB IS CURRENTLY IN HOUSE. I NEED HELP IN THE SELECTION OF A VENDOR THAT CAN TAKE THE DATA & PRODUCE A FINISHED CDROM DB. ANY COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS WILL BE APPRECIATED. 1 Reply #: 632 S3/CDROM Applications 07-May-88 07:55:41 Sb: #609-#ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: bob helfant 75530,214 To: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 I'm sorry to say that response to this disk has been minimal. If you have a similar product for the mac, I would like to add it to our software roster. We are putting some effort into the apple side of the biz. I think that the problem with pd software and CD technology is that organizations that purchase CD ROM drives aren't really interested in getting a $2 word processor. They already have WORD or WordPerfect. This is a high tech product and I think PD is more for the start up hobbiest. Bob Helfant 1 Reply #: 633 S1/General Information 07-May-88 13:58:59 Sb: #631-#DATABASE DEVELOPMENT Fm: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 To: RONALD OLDHAM 76214,373 (X) I just discover this yesterday myself from a note in ONLINE TODAY. Suggest that you RTN all the current messages (seems like it was 17 min at 2400) and then you will be caught up. I remember seeing something about Chemical Databases as I scanned thru. Also suggest that you get one of the Automated CIS attack programs such as TAPCIS (my preference at $79) or ATO (free) if you don't already have one. Even PROCOMM with suitable scripting is fine. These will save you online $ that you can turn around and spend on more online time. <grin> Orville (helpful Mode) P.S. Msgs. 345, 346, & 347 were titled HazMat Databases. 1 Reply #: 634 S1/General Information 07-May-88 14:49:29 Sb: #633-DATABASE DEVELOPMENT Fm: mike obryan 71410,340 To: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 (X) Orville, please stay in helpful mode a while longer. Where does one happen upon ATO or the other CIS attack module you mentioned? Haven't used such an animal to date but since I want to follow this forum closely that would be helpful. Thanks appreciate the helpful mode!! #: 635 S3/CDROM Applications 08-May-88 01:23:53 Sb: #632-ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: Vic Wagner/Metadigm 76046,3004 To: bob helfant 75530,214 I agree about PD and the hobbiest/enthusiast. I also believe that as soon as drives come down to some rational price (say 2 times that of a good audio player), that interest will pick up immensley. #: 636 S1/General Information 08-May-88 16:19:47 Sb: #598-Microsoft bookshelf Fm: Anthony T. DeHart 74206,1274 To: JIM BESHA 71231,770 Jim, If Michael's info didn't help you out then the only other thing I can think of is maybe, just maybe memory. How much of it do you have in the system currently?? I just got a call from a customer a couple of days ago with the exact same problem (at least I think it was "echo off" and then D:\Books) and the problem was that they weren't running with enough memory. Despite what the Bookshelf manual may say, I really think it is necessary to have 640K of memory and even setup doesn't work well without at least 512K (I believe). The same think held true too, they ran some of the other stuff but the setup didn't work. If your still having problems and you have enough memory, try making a clean config.sys and autoexec.bat file up and then run setup. If that still doesn't work, then tell me what kind of cards you have in your system. I just recently had a problem running the CD-ROM drive with a Tape Backup unit plugged in at the same time and I'm sure there are similar problems to be had with other cards. Let me know how you make out - Tony P.S. Michael - If your listening...when did this forum come about??? #: 637 S3/CDROM Applications 08-May-88 16:20:01 Sb: #609-ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: Anthony T. DeHart 74206,1274 To: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 Raines, In some ways, I agree with Bob's analogy that people who have CD-ROM drives really aren't interested in cheap, shareware or PD software and that your right that once these drives come down in price then that won't be as true anymore. However, I'd like to throw my two cents in having looked at Alde's PD disk. Granted, it is $99 and for the price, it is good but I think the popularity of one of these disks is going to be directly related to how well organized the information is. Alde's disk was very poorly organized and some directories that were supposedly on the disk weren't there. One's I thought would be the most useful. Also, I thought that many of the programs, since they were basically copies of 2 major BBS's _were_ junk. There were some "gems" however that were extremely hard to find. I suspect that there are more "gems" on there but w/o the organization, they'll never be found. 350MB or 400MB of info is nothing easy to search through. I thought that a really good idea for a disk would be one where the publisher has contacted many of the major BBS's in the US and requested what they would consider their best programs along with an AD for their BBS. Then, these programs would be compiled and placed on the disk in an organized fashion along with descriptions and the ADS and then sold for around $199 or whatever the cost. As long as they are good programs and well organized, I'm willing to pay. Hope this helps some - Tony #: 638 S1/General Information 08-May-88 16:20:13 Sb: #619-#Holographic Storage Fm: Anthony T. DeHart 74206,1274 To: Reuben Mezrich 72356,252 (X) Reuben, Don't mean to intrude here but from your previous comments, it sounds like you've been quite involved with Holography from the beginning. Maybe your the person to ask a couple of questions that have been nagging me for a while. 1. I once heard that a holographic exposure, if broken, still contained the information within a seperate piece to reconstruct the original image. Is this true or a myth and if so, how? 2. Where do you see Holography, as an applied science, heading over the next decade. Do you ever see it being used a decent means of mass storage or even archival storage. CD-ROM is in the lime-light now but Holography just fell out of discussion. What's happened to it? From what you just said before, it sounds like a WORM type drive could be made that could store tons of info on a single piece of film just by changing where information is read and written and varying the angle of the reference beam. Is that a possibility? Sorry to ask so much but Holography has always intrigued me I'd really like to see it put to some practical use in computers. Tony 1 Reply #: 639 S1/General Information 08-May-88 17:54:10 Sb: TAPCIS etc. Fm: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 To: mike obryan 71410,340 TAPCIS & ATO are in IBSW, WPSM, AVSIG. ATO is free but in my opinion is not as handy as TAPCIS for automating DL & UL of messages to CIS. Tapcis can be DL and tried out before sending a payment. How much experience do you have on CIS? Is your computer Messy Dos or PC-DOS? Have you Downloaded Binary files before? Do you have or are you familiar with the ARC and deArc programs? I assume you have a printer? Don't be scared off. All this stuff makes live on CIS real easy and inexpensive. TAPCIS will allow you to set up the forums that you are interested in, and then it will autodial log on to CIS go to the forum, download the messages (or just the headers), go to the next forum, do the same and log off. Then OFFLINE <---<<< !! you can read the messages at leisure, respond to the one you want to using the built in editor, and then TAPCIS will automatically go back on line, goto the fora specified, upload the messages, and get off. There are thousands of programs on CIS. They are in a compressed format called ARC (for ARCHIVE I think) which compresses them 30-55% which saves Download time. Then you unARC the program and run it. Most have a .DOC file with them that is a manual that can be printed out with the DOS print command. Orville (Send more info mode) #: 640 S1/General Information 08-May-88 21:04:12 Sb: #638-Holographic Storage Fm: Reuben Mezrich 72356,252 To: Anthony T. DeHart 74206,1274 Anthony In a former life (in the 60's) I used to do research on Holography at RCA labs. Our goal was to make large computer memories (this was in the days before semiconductors really got going) As to your first question --it is indeed true that any part of a hologram contains ALL of the information (image, whatever). The best analog to help understand this is that of a glass window. When you look outside you are really receiving the light rays passing through the glass. If you painted over half the window you could still see the whole outdoors. If you painted over 90% of the window you could still see everything outdoors. Even if you painted over all but a pinhole you could still see outside. In the holographic recording process you effectively freeze the light coming through the window. You could then take the glass out of the pane, move it someplace else and then shine light on it (called the reconstruction or reference beam) to "unfreeze" or reconstruct the origingal light rays. Just light the original window you don't need all of it to see through it and "see" what was originally outside. this feature is what is called redundancy, and was one of the strongest motivations for considering Holography as the basis for a computer storage method. What you give up, when you make the holographic fragment smaller and smaller is resolution, just like when you make the aperature of a camera or telescope lens smaller and smaller. Holography could be used for CD Roms, but to take advantage you need a parallel input device, to store many (thousands) of bits at once. These are truly a pain to make. the one bit at a time of present CD-Roms is a much easier approach, and you can use error correcting algorithms to give pretty good redundancy, as long as the storage medium is not too bad. Reuben #: 641 S1/General Information 08-May-88 21:18:51 Sb: #620-kurzweil Fm: John McCormick 76360,44 To: Mark Schneider 71330,467 (X) Sounds like you have the right idea on the database. No I don't have information on flatbed attachemnt for the Palantir yet. Yes the 4000 is a good unit, but the Palantir may be better and is being marketed by the Kurzweil people which should tell you something. At least they should give you an honest opinion as to which is best for your application . There is a brief review of WordCruncher in the current (recent?) PC Resource and an extensive review in BYTE about 6 months back. I have several detailed reviews but can't transmit them And i don't have a mxx mailing address for you. Yes it uses a proprietary file format, the file size limit is about 4 MB, but many files can be linked making it about the largest program available. The amount of disk space the WC program takes up depends on several things, for instance, the indexing program is totally seperate from the user interface and search program (both included in the price). There is also a very nice demo disk you should order. I will go into your other questions later, or you can look up the published reviews. #: 642 S3/CDROM Applications 09-May-88 08:58:27 Sb: #625-Bureau of Census Disk Fm: Ty Wait 76701,231 To: Bob Birge 73075,651 Bob, I don't recall anyone reporting that difficulty yet. Does the disk spin up? What error message/result do you get when you issue a DIR command? -Ty #: 643 S1/General Information 09-May-88 09:03:30 Sb: #624-Op Disk Keynote Speak Fm: Michael Macewich 76267,375 To: Ty Wait 76701,231 Thanks for the tip. Jack contacted me himself and he was very helpful. --- MACE --- #: 646 S1/General Information 10-May-88 14:35:49 Sb: #616-New member Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: Len Kaltman, Comstock 71401,216 (X) Ken - Sure, send info to: Raines Cohen The BMUG PD ROM project BMUG 1442A Walnut #62 Berkeley, CA 94709 #: 647 S1/General Information 10-May-88 14:39:42 Sb: #628-Ignorant ?s Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: Raymond G. Harder 72160,1373 > ... you are obviously on the development team there at BMUG and not the > sales because you mentined neither the contents nor the price of your > product!!! <grin> You got it... I've been spending too many 72-hour weekends on this thing to think straight. The disc is "The BMUG PD ROM," and it should be available for $100 or less at most dealers, within about a month or so, last I heard from our publisher (Discovery Systems). It contains over 250 megabytes of PD & ShareWare software, thoroughly organized and indexed. The organization parallels that of our well-tested floppy-disk PD library. We have a custom-designed HyperCard front end that I think people will like, too. Let me know if you need more information. -- Raines Cohen / Team BMUG #: 648 S3/CDROM Applications 10-May-88 14:44:44 Sb: #637-ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 To: Anthony T. DeHart 74206,1274 Tony - Thank you for your evaluation and suggestions. Yes, we have spent a lot of time worrying about quality, indexing, and organization of our PD ROM(tm), and I think we've avoided most of the problems you mentioned. Rather than just copying ours or another BBS, we've taken the Mac software library that we've been distributing on floppy for some time and refined it further, sought permission on anything not clearly commercially distributable, and built a HyperCard-based front end that allows easy selection by category. Your idea of taking the "best of" several BBS's is a good one, and we may do something like that in a future PD ROM. What has been suggested a lot is to set up the BBS contents so that another BBS operator can simply place the disc online, freeing up lots of hard disk space and greatly expanding the library offered. I think that the combined quality and price, and the newness of the Mac CD ROM market, may do us good. We'll see! -- Raines / BMUG #: 649 S1/General Information 10-May-88 16:49:20 Sb: #639-#TAPCIS etc. Fm: mike obryan 71410,340 To: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 (X) Orville, thanks for the reply, I'm currently using procomm 2.4.2 but am unimpressed with its script qualities. My inquiry was designed to settle my curiosity re the programs, it would be nice to be able to hit two to three forums automatically and browse later. It sounds like tapcis may be just the thing. {actually I'm too lazy to spend the time with procomm to s set up script files to do it}!! If tapcis is already dedicated to that function, it sounds attractive to someone of my limited energy. Appreciate the reply, I'll grab it and play a while. Thanks again. Mike (appreciate the reply mode) 1 Reply #: 650 S1/General Information 10-May-88 17:55:16 Sb: #649-#TAPCIS etc. Fm: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 To: mike obryan 71410,340 (X) I have Procomm 2.4.2 and the upgrade Procomm + but TAPCIS will do almost anything. Good clear manual also. There's new SIG software and TAP is not tuned for that yet but it's no problem as the old stuff will be around a year. When you run tapcis add the "f" parameter (e.g. >tapcis f) and it will use the old sigware when it runs. It's very easy to use. No script to write, plenty of help screens. After you get your SIG setup (Be sure to make EASYPLEX the 1st one), you set it into operation with alt-x which will go online, set up the parameters, and sign you up for each SIG. Only use alt-x the first time you sign up for a sig. Are you aware that CIS keeps a separate set of parameters for you for each baud rate? You will have to set CIS up via tapcis for each baud rate you use. After all this it, it's quite automatic & real easy. Lemme know how it turns out. Orville (back to lurking for CDROM info) 1 Reply #: 651 S1/General Information 10-May-88 20:12:19 Sb: #650-TAPCIS etc. Fm: mike obryan 71410,340 To: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 (X) Thanks, Orville, just downloaded it and will give it a shot. sounds good. Likewise, back to scouring for cd-rom tidbits #: 652 S1/General Information 11-May-88 08:11:22 Sb: #556-Tandy's Thor CD Advance? Fm: J.S. Frentzen 76117,2127 To: Kevin Darling 76703,4227 I have faith that Tandy can put something on the market, but how much of their press announcement was *real* and how much of it was a marketing ploy? -- Jeff #: 653 S3/CDROM Applications 11-May-88 08:12:34 Sb: #618-OED CROM Fm: J.S. Frentzen 76117,2127 To: Earle Robinson 70135,141 Believe it or not, there are some companies out there that charge restocking fees if you return the package opened, but unused! -- Jeff #: 644 S4/Adding CDROM Access 09-May-88 12:12:10 Sb: Standards Fm: rolfe windward 70014,646 To: Ty Wait 76701,231 Ty, I read with interest your essay on setting up a CDROM system and have some questions. I work at a private school on the West Side of Los Angeles (Windward School) and we are in the process of developing a knowledge system for the school library ... we currently use IBMs but wish to eventually have connectivity to Apples (Macs at least ... possibly IIe's as stations) .... in any case we have tentatively adopted the following standards (with our fingers crossed) 1) HSF/ISO 9660 for disk format. 2) SCSI interface. 3) MS Extensions driver. 4) Network ???! ... this is a problem given our desire for ease of use (students would be using the system) and eventual connection to Apples (or an Apple compatible Network) ... is there any standard that you know of which gives these options? We could definately use some advice on this. RW #: 645 S1/General Information 10-May-88 01:02:08 Sb: Sampler Fm: Norman Nithman 73220,3415 To: Jack Ryan Are there any copies of that sampler left from 10/87? If so, I would like to get one. I have an Amdek drive. My address is Box 4654, Chicago IL, 60680. #: 654 S3/CDROM Applications 11-May-88 11:43:55 Sb: ALDE CDROM DISC Fm: John Ausland 73240,2704 To: ALL I have just received from Bob Helfant at Compact Disc Products the ALDE CDROM disc which contains several thousand public domain and shareM programs. The price was $89 plus shipping. You can copy the programs with the COPY command. With this disc, it is hard to imagine needing to go online for anything but the most specialized utility program. It is nothing short of amazing, particularly at such a low price. #: 655 S3/CDROM Applications 12-May-88 13:40:49 Sb: Image Club ART ROOM Fm: Anne Concepcion 71571,1337 To: ALL Hi all! I'm a new member of your forum, and am I glad I found you! I see from reading the messages that at least one of you (Len Caltman) has the Image Club CDROM, as I do. I've owned it for about 6 weeks and it has already paid for itself by allowing me to do jobs that I would've had to turn down before, due to lack of fonts/artwork. I run a Desktop Publishing biz in Chicago, and I think I'm the only one in this windy city to own a CDROM! It's been pretty lonely... I belong to "The Rest of Us", a local MUG, and demonstrated my new toy at the latest graphics SIG meeting...they were blown away, to say the least! Especially at the ease of setting it up, since the Toshiba has two external SCSI ports and its ID is factory set at 0 (tho easily changed via external DIP switches). You should have seen their jaws drop after I installed the fonts (took about 10 seconds), then went to Superpaint and chose "Font"...font names extending down the entire screen, in alphabetical order, and the one at the bottom was only in the "C's"! then scrolling through all of them, it was wonderful. The day before the demo, I called Image Club for any last minute info. I asked the salesman for the sales figures, and he said 48! Only 48 of the things have been sold so far in the US...guess most Mac'ers are waiting for Apple's. But the whole Art Room package is only $100 more than the Apple drive itself! Also, maybe someone can tell me what is happening with LoDown's 50Megs of shareware on a laserdisk...it was supposed to be included with the ArtRoom package, but since Image Club started buying its drives directly from Toshiba, it's not included anymore...the salesman at IC tells me it'll cost me bout $300 to get it. He also says LoDown's heading down the tubes...any info? Anne-Marie #: 656 S1/General Information 12-May-88 14:58:15 Sb: #561-I'm a new user! Fm: rolfe windward 70014,646 To: RICH MENARD 75410,316 Rich, I'm in the same boat that you are ... a computer coordinator of a secondary, private school (in Los Angeles) who needs to make some difficult hardware & software decisions in the next few months. This forum is unfortunately rather new and the "traffic" is somewhat low (I posted a msg to the sysop a few days ago and have yet to receive a reply) none the less, there are some very knowledgable folks who visit here and we may get lucky. I'll be happy to keep you posted with what little I have discovered if you think that will help you ... it would almost certainly help me if you did the same. Perhaps by doing some pooling we can develop some solutions. - RW #: 657 S4/Adding CDROM Access 12-May-88 16:54:23 Sb: #644-#Standards Fm: Ty Wait 76701,231 To: rolfe windward 70014,646 (X) Rolfe, I suggest the first network to consider is AppleTalk. This is a very cost effective backbone, as long as small chunks of data are to be transmitted (I'm assuming small file transfer and reasonable printer use are what you would use it for). The last several issues of trade pubs like PC Week and InfoWorld contain a few product announcements by companies with PC boards that give them access to AppleTalk. Then, a piece of software such as MacServe (a PC version will soon be out) would let your workstations share printers and access community file servers. Standards 1, 2, 3 I heartily agree with. Hope this helps. Good luck. -Ty 1 Reply #: 658 S1/General Information 12-May-88 16:56:46 Sb: #623-New User Fm: Ty Wait 76701,231 To: Mike Vergara 73547,2070 Welcome, Mike. Suggest getting a copy of "CDROM The New Papyrus" from Microsoft Press to start offline learning, check out the libraries, and ask lots of questions here. Hope to see you back soon. -Ty Wait #: 659 S1/General Information 12-May-88 17:05:40 Sb: #626-#FUTURE CD TECHNOLOGY Fm: Ty Wait 76701,231 To: HECTOR L. PADRON 73117,1253 (X) Tandy has announced the read/write technology you mentioned, but don't expect to see it for two or three years. As far as putting your filing cabinet contents on optical media: a) how much are you willing to spend (in time if you do it yourself, or $ for someone else -- $1-3 per sheet of paper?) b) how would you use it? a full text search could take hours if the disc were full, and indexing would take a lot of space. c) are there pictures in your data? how do you want them handled? -Ty Wait 1 Reply #: 660 S1/General Information 12-May-88 18:50:48 Sb: #652-Tandy's Thor CD Advance? Fm: mike obryan 71410,340 To: J.S. Frentzen 76117,2127 Jeff, my vote goes for a considerable dose of *ploy* . Doesn't 18-24 months seem kinda premature to make an announcement of that kind anyway? Lots can happen in that impressive an interval! how ya been? #: 661 S1/General Information 13-May-88 04:55:02 Sb: #647-Ignorant ?s Fm: Raymond G. Harder 72160,1373 To: Berkeley MUG 70007,2271 (X) Thanx, I am interested in both products so I'll keep my eyes peeled. #: 662 S4/Adding CDROM Access 13-May-88 10:50:03 Sb: #657-Standards Fm: rolfe windward 70014,646 To: Ty Wait 76701,231 Thanks Ty ... that was the sort of reinforcement I've been looking for. What do you think of the TOPS network .... does it seem a reasonable alternative as an AppleShare server? - RW #: 663 S1/General Information 13-May-88 20:20:01 Sb: #639-#TAPCIS etc. Fm: Earle Robinson 70135,141 To: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 (X) Nice to run into once again. I haven't seen you around where I usually am for some time. Noting your pleasure in tapcis, I wonder if you've seen the latest ATO. It really has the same features, and is free, vs. $80 for tapcis. Of course, you got yours when the price was lower, but it is a point. I heard you were moving to nyc. -er 1 Reply #: 665 S3/CDROM Applications 13-May-88 22:23:40 Sb: #635-#ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: bob helfant 75530,214 To: Vic Wagner/Metadigm 76046,3004 (X) I'm sorry, but I have to disagree about the price of drives. I think that $700 is a fair price for a peripheral that gives you instant access to gigabytes of data. I just paid $1200 for a hard disk. I know that was a litle high, but they go from about $600 to several thousand and nobody is complaining about it. Bob 1 Reply #: 668 S1/General Information 14-May-88 03:10:26 Sb: #659-FUTURE CD TECHNOLOGY Fm: Mark Schneider 71330,467 To: Ty Wait 76701,231 Ty - a full text search of a full CD-ROM could take HOURS? Assuming intelligent indexing and good search programs, how many megabytes of text could one reasonably place on a disk? What are the limiting factors? Thanks, Mark #: 669 S4/Adding CDROM Access 14-May-88 15:49:20 Sb: #HELLO! Fm: Neil G. Gordes 71465,154 To: ALL I'm new too both CDROM & this forum. Use CD's at work for such things as the Readers' Guide, Newsbank, Lib. of Congress holdings, and also have purchased PC-SIG #1-813 CD-ROM. I have access to Hitachi 1500s and 2500s. Certainly is a neat new technology. I am wondering, where can I get the MICROSOFT CDROM DOS 3.3 extension? No luch as of two weeks ago on the MS forum. 1 Reply #: 670 S1/General Information 14-May-88 18:43:13 Sb: #663-TAPCIS etc. Fm: Orville Fudpucker 70130,372 To: Earle Robinson 70135,141 (X) Good to hear from you! I noticed you over on PCMAG a week or so ago but didn't say anything, although I was tempted to send you a pun or two or perhaps even some "Rural humus" |-). I was just lurking and getting TAP set up and trying to catch up on all the messages. Noted Joan's name & Sally Ryce & others from the IBMNET. I dropped out of the IBM sigs & took my CI$ elsewhere last Sept. I felt like Don had treated Howard shabbily and rather than get into an exchange of diatribes etc, I just voted with my feet & left. Zapcis was lower priced, but I was so pleased with it that I sent in $100, so I got the manual & the upgrade to Tapcis. Shortly thereafter I bought another one at the $79 fixed price for the home computer. Haven't seen the latest ATO. I did pay $25 for the Procomm Plus update but really haven't used it much. Several times (I believe on this sig recently was one of them) I've responded with a recommendation of ATO (free) or TAPCIS ($79) and then gone on to extoll the virtues (as I perceive them) of TAPCIS. "moving to nyc". What a viscious, unprincipled rumor. I've heard of nyc, and even have been there (some years ago) but I'm happy right here in the vast wastelands of Texas @ Grandma's Massage Parlor "In Beautiful Downtown Plano", also the home of Willie Mae's bakery, maker of the TSJD which is known far and wide (at least on AVSIG). Just (last week) upgraded my Main(?) Frame computer from a Perkin-Elmer 3205 to a Concurrent 3212. Best regards, Orville #: 671 S3/CDROM Applications 15-May-88 00:26:33 Sb: #665-#ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: Vic Wagner/Metadigm 76046,3004 To: bob helfant 75530,214 (X) I didn't say that "I" thought they were too expensive. I wanted to, and believe I did say that when the price drops to about twice what audio CD players go for, then we'll really see the explosion. BTW where do you get more than .5gig on a drive? 1 Reply #: 672 S1/General Information 15-May-88 08:14:02 Sb: #586-#Tandy's Thor CD Advance? Fm: Roy S. Laufer 72435,1025 To: Aegis Development 76067,2500 (X) Re: CD-ROM based games I don't think so, not at this time anyway. I don't have the statistics of CD-ROM reading devices that are presently in the hands of micro-computer users, but I would assume that they are small. The price of the hardware, the rumors of CD-ROM vs CD-I vs CD-V as the way to go, and now the rumors of Tandy's THOR technology along with other rumors about eraseable optical devices will most likely limit the base of users. I don't see even inexpensive games making a dent until all of this technological `dust' settles down and inexpensive `standards' emerge (or atleast when all these rumors either come to fruition or die `on the tree'! -RSL- 1 Reply #: 673 S1/General Information 15-May-88 08:14:12 Sb: #590-Introduction Fm: Roy S. Laufer 72435,1025 To: Wayne Lee 76650,323 Welcome aboard Wayne! I'm a general internist, but I have friends in Emergency Medicine and they have told me about Emergidex. I understand that it is VERY expensive, but then most medical equipment tends to be. From the description that my friend gave me its like a supercharged compilation of important information that's retrievable faster than textbooks allow. Just the thing to show off CD-ROM's capabilities! -RSL_MD- #: 674 S1/General Information 15-May-88 10:19:58 Sb: #kurzweil Fm: John McCormick 76360,44 To: 71330,467 (X) Kurzweil announced a new scanner at Comdex on the 10th that might interest you. The Model 30 has a flat bed scanner with 30 page sheet feed mechanism and is the first scanner to be able to deal with columns. Kurzweil scanners now support 7 languages. The price is $13,950 and it looks like the answer to your needs. -jm 1 Reply #: 675 S1/General Information 15-May-88 15:03:58 Sb: #674-kurzweil Fm: Mark Schneider 71330,467 To: John McCormick 76360,44 How exciting, John!!! And thank you for thinking of me! Tell me more though, please: is it basically the Discover model with a flatbed? I.E. does it have the same processor, firmware/software, etc. as the magnificent Discover? When will it be AVAILABLE? Can I borrow $13,950? Thanks for everything, Mark #: 676 S3/CDROM Applications 15-May-88 18:44:37 Sb: #671-ALDE PUBLISHING DISCS Fm: bob helfant 75530,214 To: Vic Wagner/Metadigm 76046,3004 (X) The drive is not what I see rated. I have seen CDs rated from 550 megabytes to 600 + megabytes. I believe that they are all about the same and 550 is the number I see the most. Bob #: 677 S1/General Information 15-May-88 18:46:09 Sb: #604-#New member Fm: bob helfant 75530,214 To: Len Kaltman, Comstock 71401,216 (X) Will this be in a format readable on a PC? Bob Helfant 1 Reply #: 678 S1/General Information 15-May-88 18:47:43 Sb: #623-New User Fm: bob helfant 75530,214 To: Mike Vergara 73547,2070 Please call my company for a free catalog. We have been selling optical drives and software for about a year. 1-800-MEGABYT Bob Helfant, Compact Disk Products. #: 679 S3/CDROM Applications 15-May-88 18:49:03 Sb: #654-ALDE CDROM DISC Fm: bob helfant 75530,214 To: John Ausland 73240,2704 Thanks for the mention, John. Bob Helfant #: 680 S4/Adding CDROM Access 15-May-88 18:51:04 Sb: #669-HELLO! Fm: bob helfant 75530,214 To: Neil G. Gordes 71465,154 The MS DOS extension is included with most drives, but if you need it, we can sell it to you. Compact Disk Products 1-800-MEGABYT Bob Helfant #: 681 S1/General Information 16-May-88 12:19:10 Sb: #677-New member Fm: Len Kaltman, Comstock 71401,216 To: bob helfant 75530,214 Dear Bob, Comstock Desktop Photography will have both Apple and High Sierra drivers on the disc. Should work fine with either. Regards, Len Kaltman #: 682 S1/General Information 16-May-88 13:36:14 Sb: #672-Tandy's Thor CD Advance? Fm: Aegis Development 76067,2500 To: Roy S. Laufer 72435,1025 Maybe Apple's CD-ROM drive will help. I do agree that the amount of speculation on CD-I, CD-V, and now THOR hurts the current industry.... "Any announced product is superior to any released product..."