Subj : cd-rw
To   : ALL
From : GENE KWIECINSKI
Date : Fri Aug 01 2003 01:23 am

Just got myself a cd-rw drive, figured I'd use it just to read discs for
the time being, possibly write any drivers if need be.  Price was right,
so ain't complaining.  Only thing it includes is Windows bloatware.

Question is if it'd at least read discs with a generic DOS driver and
interface (mscdex, etc.), at least to read.  Haven't tried it yet, as no
time to dissect the machine yet to install it.

Now, about *writing* to it...  Buncha different possibilities listed,
like session, disk-at-once, track-at-once, sector-at-once, etc.  Is
there any standard protocol for doing so?  I'd imagine that with the
simplest method, sector-at-once, it's like writing to a generic IDE disk
drive.  Can DOS itself do it, thinking it's another drive?  Need drivers
to do so?  Nothing that I saw in Ralf Brown's list so far.  Just
wondering how "standard" said protocol is, or if it varies widely based
on the mfr of the drive.

Now, I can probably hook into DOS's interrupts, hard-coded at first, but
expand that to include a loader and/or read from an environment
variable, but is it necessary?  Is it like for VGA, where you really
only need drivers for board-specific modes and whatnot, but can use
standard generic VGA/SVGA/etc. modes just fine?

Spex:
        KHypermedia 48x write, 24x rewrite, 48x read
        JPSoft 4DOS over IBM PCDOS 6.3
        mix'n'match hardware
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