CD-ROMS and A/UX installation
James Kroger
installing A/UX and various kinds of CD-ROMS
being unuseable for the installation. However,
there never seemed to be any conclusive discussion
of whether some CD-ROMs are incompatible with
A/UX.
Question:
Is it true that you can't install A/UX with some CD-ROMs?
That is, if you have a particular brand of CD-ROM,
you're just out of luck? Does Apple publish a
list of compatible and incompatible drives?
(This seems a strange state of affairs. Why would
Apple take a chance on leaving alot of people
up the creek without a compatible CD-ROM?
How is one supposed to know about this
defficiency in advance (if it exists),
before purchasing the wrong CD-ROM?)
Thanks,
Jim
William Johnston
>There was some discussion here recently about installing A/UX and
>various kinds of CD-ROMS being unuseable for the installation.
>However, there never seemed to be any conclusive discussion
>of whether some CD-ROMs are incompatible with A/UX.
>Question:
>Is it true that you can't install A/UX with some CD-ROMs?
Yes. The only definite response that I had after posting this
question was that NEC CD-ROM drives are incompatible with A/UX.
This includes both the NEC CDR-36 and faster CDR-73, both of
which work under System 7.0.
There were also a couple of more tentative suggestions that:
1) The Toshiba XM3201 works with A/UX.
2) Sony CD-ROM drives will probably work with the Apple drivers
available on ftp.apple.com. (The Apple drive is a Sony.)
>(This seems a strange state of affairs. Why would
>Apple take a chance on leaving alot of people
>up the creek without a compatible CD-ROM?
In this day of "open systems", I'd have to agree. I haven't
gotten my 3.0 CD yet, but I'm not looking forward to trial-
and-error as a method of finding out whether peripherals
will work. In fairness, it should be mentioned that Apple
has made available an unsupported list of 3rd-party software
and peripherals compatible with A/UX (according to vendors,
not Apple). Unfortunately, not all manufacturers have chosen
to contribute to the list, and of course the only listings
are from those who claim compatibility; there is no list of
*incompatible* products.
(The list I mentioned is available on aux.support.apple.com;
no, it doesn't include any CD-ROM info.)
-- Bill (john...@me.udel.edu)
Jim Jagielski
>In article <1992May25.2...@cognet.ucla.edu>, kro...@cognet.ucla.edu (James Kroger) writes...
>>There was some discussion here recently about installing A/UX and
>>various kinds of CD-ROMS being unuseable for the installation.
>>However, there never seemed to be any conclusive discussion
>>of whether some CD-ROMs are incompatible with A/UX.
>>Question:
>>Is it true that you can't install A/UX with some CD-ROMs?
>Yes. The only definite response that I had after posting this
>question was that NEC CD-ROM drives are incompatible with A/UX.
>This includes both the NEC CDR-36 and faster CDR-73, both of
>which work under System 7.0.
>There were also a couple of more tentative suggestions that:
>1) The Toshiba XM3201 works with A/UX.
>2) Sony CD-ROM drives will probably work with the Apple drivers
> available on ftp.apple.com. (The Apple drive is a Sony.)
>>(This seems a strange state of affairs. Why would
>>Apple take a chance on leaving alot of people
>>up the creek without a compatible CD-ROM?
As far as I know, one of the main problems is that A/UX only recognizes 512byte
block sizes and a few CD-ROMs use something like 1k blocks.
--
==============================================================================
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
Jim Jagielski NASA/GSFC, Code 734.4
j...@jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov Greenbelt, MD 20771
"Are you hungry? I could open a can of ribs..."
Steve B. Green
>[deleted]
>2) Sony CD-ROM drives will probably work with the Apple drivers
> available on ftp.apple.com. (The Apple drive is a Sony.)
I have found this to be partially true. I have a Sun CD-ROM drive that
is a sony mech (CDU-8012 I think), but does not work the the "standard"
Apple drivers. However, you may have noticed that there is a hacked
version of the driver on the 3.0 install disk called "AppleCD hack".
(Or something like that) With that driver, the Sun CD-ROM drive works well
enough to install AUX.
--
Steve Green <xr...@charney.gsfc.nasa.gov>
NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Centers For Computational Sciences, Code 931
Damon Permezel
The AppleCD SC Plus does.
Anyone want to buy a slightly used CDR-73?
Tony Cooper
In article <1992May25.2...@cognet.ucla.edu>,
kro...@cognet.ucla.edu (James Kroger) writes:
|> Is it true that you can't install A/UX with some CD-ROMs?
Yes and no. My NEC CDR-73 does not work under A/UX. But when I get A/UX 3.0
on CDROM (if it ever reaches New Zealand) I intend to hack the generic disk
driver under 2.01 to get it to work with the NEC and then install 3.0 from
there. If the 3.0 CD has a mountable file system then this should be easy.
|> (This seems a strange state of affairs. Why would
|> Apple take a chance on leaving alot of people
|> up the creek without a compatible CD-ROM?
As far as I can tell the NEC uses a non standard mode select command. A/UX
can't possible know of this - it's not Apple's fault. But A/UX also requires
certain block sizes and so is not as generic as it could be. This IS Apple's
fault and I think it should definitely be corrected. Some drives work better
with block sizes other than 512 so this would be a good idea for more than
just reading CDROMs.
Cheers
Tony Cooper
to...@marcam.dsir.govt.nz
Kristopher L Tyra -- The Sapphire Group
>
>
>As far as I can tell the NEC uses a non standard mode select command. A/UX
>can't possible know of this - it's not Apple's fault.
Actually it is. Their using the mode select to change the block size
of the device.
> But A/UX also requires
>certain block sizes and so is not as generic as it could be. This IS Apple's
>fault and I think it should definitely be corrected. Some drives work better
>with block sizes other than 512 so this would be a good idea for more than
>just reading CDROMs.
Sorry, I had to disappear for last two months but I've been out of town with
a client who seems to think he is the most important company in the world.
At any rate, To all the beta sites of NHD/GSD. Sorry, for the long delays.
I am busy at my desk working on the new version. I learned alot from
benchmarks that Dameon sent me and have been working to increase the
performance. It also seems that Apple did something funky with multiple HFS
volumes that I think I've figured out. My projected release date of the new
version is on Friday. I will ship to all beta sites then - assuming some
positive feed back - I'll release. I am testing with Microtech CD-ROM 2k
block size Magneto-optical 1k block size and a Quantum something 512.
Currently all is well. I was going to drop support of 2.01 which was giving
me problems. But Tony, if you need it for installation I'll get it suppoted.
Alexis I haven't lost your mail. I've just been too swamp to respond.
To others who don't know about NHD/GSD. NHD is an alternative to Apples
GDISK (generic driver). It does handle multiple blocks sizes.
And hope it will handle the NEC real soon.
________________________________
Kristopher L. Tyra
The Sapphire Group
(919) 481-9052
ktyra%sap...@concert.net
Consultants - A/UX, OSF, AIX/ESA,
Sun, X-Windows, MacOS