How to Read a CD on 7.5.5?

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Level 1

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How to Read a CD on 7.5.5?

Me again, but the system made me choose a new ID.

This is not strictly about System 7, but about CD-ROM handling on same.

The upgrade to 7.5.5 Seemed also to remove FWB's CD-ROM Toolkit. Did Apple used to do this sort of thing? I own a copy of FWB's HD Toolkit, but not the CD-ROM one. The CD drive is an external Toshiba, and there used to be a driver for this on the web. There was also a patch to Apple's Access gizmo that let you use other than Cupertino drives. (Ouch, for that pun.) Every link to the above I can find on the web is broken. There's no FWB older than v5 on Ebay at the moment. Any hints for acquiring an FWB?

Anyone remember whether System-7 era Macs could read mixed-mode Mac/PC ("Extended Filesystem") ISO data CDs? I found a System 6 freeware driver that works a little, but the only disks it can read are Civ 3 (for OS9), and an ancient Magazine CD. I guess these are the original "Mac" ISO format from the salad days of the "CD-ROM Revolution."

iBook 12" 2005, IIci

Posted on Nov 18, 2007 8:31 AM

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Answer 1

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

22,255 points

Nov 20, 2007 7:59 AM in response to fhaber52

Hi,

Yes, the headphone jack in the external SCSI CD-ROM drive had to be used.

This web page mentions 8-bit sound. I do not know whether additional information can be found under the IIci link here.

Jan

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Answer 2

Nov 18, 2007 8:34 PM in response to fhaber52

Apple's CDROM extension was first installable in 7.1. Almost immediately it could read Mac formats, ISO 9660, High Sierra. Shortly after that it could read Photo CD. This was accomplished with a group of extension extensions -- one for each format. They all added on to the capabilities of Foreign File Access, which was the keystone in the whole scheme.

Be sure that your software update did not just move that FWB extension into the Extensions(disabled) folder, which appeared somewhere about that time. Or possibly it is still in place but fighting with the Apple CD Extension for control of the drive.

CD version 5.4 is available for download from the Older Software Downloads page.

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Answer 3

fhaber52 Author

Level 1

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Nov 19, 2007 8:14 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

(Old nick again; the boards are smiling on me today.)

Thanks.

FYI for anyone: Toast 4.01 is fatal on 7.5.5/68k. Reader panel conflicts with everything and the app bombs on launch. Still looking for CD-ROM Toolkit, which is well and truly missing.

BTW, the one thing the Systems upgrades missed is Update 3 to 7.1. No sweat though; it wasn't loading at boot.

For any doubters out there, the IIci's a much smoother computer now, and the smidgin of swap/virtual_mem compensates nicely for the increased RAM usage of a loaded System. Don't even think about it unless you have a 16MB machine, though. I've got 20, and could use more.

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Answer 4

fhaber52 Author

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Nov 19, 2007 1:50 PM in response to fhaber52

Please forgive marking this unread again - it's just to catch you regulars' attention...

Having retrieved my CD-ROM Toolkit 1.59 floppy from a friend, along with the bottle of Scotch he owed me for keeping it for five years...

The Apple Audio Player now plays tracks at 1x without the play button going out and the counters returning to start, and I get audio out the headphone jack, and it finally dawns on silly me that

This old IIci wasn't designed to emit decoded CD-Audio back down the external SCSI bus and out the audio mini-jack. In fact, narrow old-time SCSI-II probably never had any facilities for this. Mac users hooked their speakers to the drive, right?

In fact, the internal sound chip, although stereo, appears to be 8-bit, 22kHz only? Could someone just verify all this for me? I'll slink away then (g).

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