This is the README for playcd.1.3.s.tar.gz [Download] [Browse] [Up]
NOTE: This archive was compressed using GNU gzip. Gzip achieves
considerably better compression rates and higher decompression speeds
than compress, but it is not installed on machines running operating
system versions older than NeXTstep 3.1. You can get it from
prep.ai.mit.edu and many other fine anon ftp sites.
Playcd 1.3
============
This is the fourth public release of the playcd,play3401 series.
Playcd is a program which reads the contents audio CDs, transfers them
digitally over the SCSI bus to the NeXT itself and then plays them on
the host system. As currently there is not yet a standard set of SCSI
commands for this task, all the CD ROM drives which can do this do it in
mutually incompatible ways. As a consequence this reader work only
with the Toshiba 3401 and NEC 3X series of CD ROM drives.
(We do have hopes though to incorporate support for other drives.
Currently, the required OPCODE for Hitachi and Sony is known as to be
0xD8. But this has not been verified and this information is not
to be relied on)
Playcd needs to access the raw CD which on NeXTs is only possible
for root. As a consequence it needs to be run either by root himself,
or has to be installed SUID root. "make install" by root will install
play3401 properly for general usage.
Playcd has been heavily optimized to use as little CPU time as
possible to the point that virtually all its CPU load is caused by
system call overhead. This still leaves a CPU load of about 15% on a
25 MHz mono slab in addition to an unspecified load on the SCSI bus.
So probably you'll not want to run playcd while recompiling the
operating system or doing 3D animation , but for use with low-impact
tasks like news/mail reading/writing, text editing or an occasional
compile, it'll work just fine.
If you find any bugs or have any problems feel free to email me.
Carl Edman 2-3-93
<cedman@princeton.edu>
Juergen Sell 12 Apr, 1995
<js@icem.de>
Changes between V1.3 and V1.2:
==============================
- added support the NEC 3X series. Should also work with the 1X, 2X and 4X
series of NEC drives but has not yet been tested.
- added stupid l option to get simplest form of table of contents
- added d<n> option to begin inquiry at /dev/sd<n>. Default is '0'.
- renamed project to 'playcd' to reflect added nec support.
Changes between V1.2 and V1.1:
==============================
- There is a slightly better chance that play3401 will work on NS/FIP
hardware.
- Play3401 will now also record samples directly off the CD to a
standard NS sound file.
- A number of minor bugs were fixed including one which made play3401s
track numbering unreliable.
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.