Macintosh Animation Showcase/Macintosh Animation Showcase CD-ROM.iso/FORUM/623-643

Text File | 1988-05-09 | 16.0 KB | 430 lines | [TEXT/MSWD]

#: 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 ---