From: Aric.Caley@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Reasons for Amiga CD
X-Sender: newtout 0.05 Dec 30 1992
Date: 02 Jan 93  04:04:02

> Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
> From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
> Message-ID: <C043q8.8pC@news.iastate.edu>
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
>
> In article <C03vrC.79J@NeoSoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
> writes:
> >Read-write mini-CDs hit the market this year. They're going to destroy
> >casettes.
>
>   I doubt it.  Cassettes recently got a reguvenation, from
> new DAT drives that
> can store digitally on ordinary cassettes, and play old analog-written
> cassettes.  This is highly attractive to people who have lots of old
> cassettes
> and want to still be able to use them.

DAT  is  a  totaly incompatible system.  You are "thinking" (and I use that
term  lightly) of Philips' DCC.  While an interesting idea, I dont think it
will  become  all  that  popular - it might have if it came out a few years
ago.   But  I  think the recordable optical disk machines are going to win,
especialy since the price difference is nil - they cost about the same.

> >Read-write full-size CDs will show up pretty soon. They
> >will be compatible with
> >read-only CDs (the players will play conventional CDs, but the read-write
> >CDs probably won't play in conventional players).
>
>   Read-write CDs have been promised for some time.  They are here already,
> but only in very-expensive units that can only erase and re-write a CD a
> very limited number of times, and only to special CDs.

WRONG!!!   They  are  here now, in units priced comparably to other systems
(DAT  and  DCC) (about $500 for a PORTABLE).  And they can re-record over a
million times on a disk - hardly "very limited".  These things could, and I
believe  will  eventualy, kill the cassette.  They probably wont kill CD's,
because  CD's  will  continue  to be cheaper to manufacture (both disks and
players).

If Commodore wanted to be really visionary, they'd toss the CD-ROM entirely
and go with the Sony 2.5" MiniDisk drive.

>   Even after read-write CDs do finally arrive, the manufacturing costs of

They are already here.

> such CDs will likely be higher than for CD-ROMs.  So I expect CD-ROMs to
> stick
> around for a long while even after read-write CDs are
> available, especially if
> all read-write CD drives are rigged so that they cannot be used to copy

I  think  Audio  CD's will persist for this reason, but CD-ROM will quickly
die because it just doesn't have the market mass that Audio CD already has.
CD-ROM is still a developing thing.

> CD-ROMs.  The audio industry will almost certainly insist on circuitry to
> prevent read-write CD drives from copying audio CDs, and the software
> publishing industry may get on the bandwagon by insisting on similar
> circuitry

Well  the Sony MiniDisk is already out.  I dont know if it has this kind of
circuitry in it.

> for CD-ROMs.  If so, CD-ROMs would continue to be very
> attractive distribution
> medium for software publishers.
>
> -!-
> | Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
> -!------------------------------------------------

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