From: barrett@cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett)
Subject: REVIEW: AsimCDFS CDROM Filesystem
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Summary: Yup, the moderator writes reviews too.  How about you? :-)
Keywords: CDROM, filesystem, driver, multimedia, commercial
Reply-To: barrett@cs.umass.edu
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 03:32:36 GMT


PRODUCT NAME

	AsimCDFS, version 1.0b


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	AsimCDFS is a CDROM filesystem.  It allows the Amiga to read CDROM
discs using a SCSI CDROM drive (not included), and supports ISO 9660, High
Sierra, and Macintosh HFS disc formats.  The package also includes
AsimTunes, a program for playing audio CD's, and FishMarket, a CDROM
containing the first 637 Fish Disks.


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Asimware Innovations
			Paul Reeves, President

	Address:	101 Country Club Drive
			Hamilton, Ontario  L8K 5W4
			Canada

	Telephone:	(416) 578-4916


LIST PRICE

	$79.95 (US dollars)

	I paid $64.00 at an Amiga dealer, and I have seen mailorder prices
	as low as $50.00.


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		The product reportedly works on "all Amiga models."

		Your Amiga must have a SCSI CDROM drive connected.  Currently,
		the following drives are supported, with "more drives being
		added constantly" (according to the manual):

			Chinon CDS-431 (ROM H48)
			Toshiba XM-320x, XM-330x, XM-2200, XM5100
				(I use an XM-3301 -- see my comments.)
			NEC CDR-7x, 8x, and 3x families
				(Old NEC drives may hang the Amiga if
				 powered up when the Amiga is cold-booted.)
			Panasonic CD-501 (ROM 1.0b)
				(NOT RECOMMENDED due to incompatibilities.)

			Pioneer DRM-600 will be added in version 1.0c.
			Hitachi drives will be "added soon."

		The following SCSI controllers are supported:

			CDTV
			Commodore 2091, 590, and Amiga 3000
			GVP Impact Series II and 68030 Combo (4.4 ROMs)
			IVS Trumpcard Classic and Professional (4.9 ROMs)

		AsimCDFS requires at least 512K RAM.  On my system, mounted
		with four 48K buffers, AsimCDFS uses approximately 520K RAM.


	SOFTWARE

		AsimCDFS works under Amiga OS versions 1.3 and 2.0
		(and presumably versions higher than 2.0).


COPY PROTECTION

	None.  Installs easily on a hard drive.

		
GETTING THE LATEST VERSION

	If you buy AsimCDFS in a store today, the chances are that you may
get version 1.0, which is NOT the latest version.  Currently, the latest
version is 1.0b, and the upgrade is $5.00 to cover the cost of the disk,
mailer, and postage.

	If you have a Toshiba drive, you NEED at least version 1.0b.  The
NEC, Panasonic, and Chinon drives are supported by 1.0.


INSTALLATION

	AsimCDFS uses the standard Commodore "Installer" program, making
installation very easy.  I used the "expert level" installation mode, so I
was prompted for the location of every file installed.

	I encountered one problem while installing AsimCDFS.  I decided
to install one of the files in a directory different from the default.
So, I clicked on the directory name to change it.  The installation program
beeped several times and then hung.  The problem is that I was supposed
to click on the "Change Destination" gadget to change the directory name,
not edit the name directly.  I do not know whether Asimware or Commodore
is at fault.


ASIMCDFS

	I tested AsimCDFS on an A3000T with a Toshiba TXM-3301B CDROM
drive ($400 US by mailorder).  The Toshiba has a 64K data cache, an average
access time of 325ms, and a sustained data transfer rate of 150K/sec.
(Burst rate is 1.5MB/sec.)

	[Although this does not have to do with AsimCDFS, I should note
	that the A3000T cannot cold-boot unless there is a disc in the
	Toshiba drive. This is a minor annoyance, and I believe it can be
	corrected by changing the SCSI ID of the boot drive to be less than
	the Toshiba's, but I haven't tried this.]

	Once AsimCDFS was installed and running, I tested it with several
CDROM's:  FishMarket (included with AsimCDFS), the AB20 and USENET Source
Code disc from Walnut Creek CDROM, and The Fred Fish Collection version 1.5
from Hypermedia Concepts.  Both Walnut Creek discs are ISO 9660 level 1
(filenames limited to 12 characters), and both Fish discs are ISO 9660
level 2 (filenames up to 32 characters).

	AsimCDFS makes a CDROM disc appear to be an ordinary AmigaDOS
volume, usable from both the Workbench and the Shell.  The program has
no trouble at all reading the data from all my discs.  The response time
is slower than my hard drive, but much faster than floppies, and I find it
acceptable.


TORTURE-TESTING ASIMCDFS

	I decided to have a little fun torture-testing AsimCDFS. :-)
IMPORTANT NOTE -- NONE OF THESE TESTS INDICATE ANY PROBLEM WITH ASIMCDFS.
They were just for fun, to see what would happen in unusual circumstances.
	
	 First, I used a program to traverse every directory on an entire
CDROM disc (Fred Fish Collection version 1.5). AsimCDFS worked fine during
this test.  In fact, my program eventually quit after scanning 575 of the
700 directories because it detected an error on the CDROM disc!  The
directory cd0:FF_DISKS/571-600/FF_576/TermII/Franais cannot be read. 
(I'll have to call Hypermedia about this....) I don't know what this test
proved, but it was fun. :-)

	Next, I tried ejecting the CDROM disc during heavy drive activity. 
(Hee hee hee.)  This did not cause any problems for AsimCDFS.  I did
discover that some other applications do not work correctly when the disc
gets ejected. (This is not AsimCDFS's fault at all -- the applications have
a bug.)

	Next, I tried running several programs that expect standard
Amiga filesystems:

		Quarterback 4.3 (Central Coast Software), backup program
		AmiBack 2.0 (Moonlighter Software), backup program
		Zoom 4.2 (Olaf Barthel), floppy disk compresser
		BootBack (David Joiner), floppy boot block save/restore
		DiskSalv 1.42 (Dave Haynie), disk repair

but asked them to read the CDROM device, CD0:, instead.  Heh heh.

	Both Quarterback and AmiBack worked without a problem.  Zoom
recognized that CD0: wasn't a floppy and exited properly.  BootBack simply
hung until I popped out the disc; then it exited.  DiskSalv hung until I
popped out the disc, and then it reported that it was ready to proceed. 
So, what the heck, I put the disc back in and DiskSalv immediately reported
an error and hung. I popped the disc out again, clicked the close box, and
DiskSalv exited.

	Remember, these "torture tests" do not prove that anything is
wrong with AsimCDFS.  I intentionally did some nasty, unusual things to see
if AsimCDFS would crash.  It did not -- AsimCDFS performed fine.


ASIMTUNES

	AsimTunes is a program that displays a graphic "CD player" with a
few simple controls:  play, stop, next track, previous track, pause, and
eject.  This allows you to play and control audio CD's using the CDROM
drive, assuming that your CDROM drive supports this.  All of these
functions worked fine.

	AsimTunes has an ARexx port that accepts commands for most
(but not all) of the CD player controls.  I tested this and it appears
to work fine except for the "EJECTCD" command, which caused my Amiga to
crash several times.  See the BUGS AND STRANGENESS section below.


FISHMARKET CDROM

	This disc contains Fish Disks 1-637.  The Fish Disks are arranged
in groups of 25, each group in its own subdirectory.  This is a fairly
convenient organization if you know the number of the disk you want. I had
no trouble writing a short ARexx script to change to the directory of any
Fish Disk quickly.

	If you don't know the disk number, then you can use any of the
three Fish Disk navigation programs included:  Aquarium, NewAquarium, and
FishCat.  All three programs have been pre-configured to work for Fish
Disks 1-637; all you need to do is click on the icons and start using them.
Also included is the general file-handling program "SID".

	According to Asimware, "FishMarket will be updated periodically,
usually coinciding with major software upgrades.  Registered users will
automatically be informed of updates."  From talking with Asimware, I
got the feeling that FishMarket will not be updated as often as, say,
Hypermedia Concepts' "Fred Fish Collection", which comes out every 4
months.  Asimware is not interested in competing with Hypermedia.


ADVANCED FEATURES

	If you are mastering your own CDROM discs, you might find it useful
that AsimCDFS can emulate a CDROM from a hard drive.  Just write the CDROM
image to the hard drive directly, change a few mountlist flags, and you can
"access the hard drive exactly as if it were a CDROM."

	I did not test this feature.


DOCUMENTATION

	AsimCDFS comes with a 21-page stapled booklet which briefly
describes all aspects of the package.  Although it contains quite a
few spelling, grammatical, and typesetting mistakes, the booklet is
sufficient for setting up and using AsimCDFS and AsimTunes.

	I wish there had been more technical information about recommended
number of cache buffers, and maybe a description of how to access functions
like "eject CD" from our own programs.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	There are currently two other CDROM filesystems for the Amiga:
CDROM-FS by Canadian Prototype Replicas, and the filesystem by Xetec
(I don't know the name).  All three systems read ISO 9660 discs; this is
the most common format for Amiga CDROM's.  Both Xetec and AsimCDFS also
read High Sierra and Mac HFS discs.

	I have not used the Xetec and CPR filesystems, so I can't compare
their performance to AsimCDFS's.  However, my friend Mike Meyer
(mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us) owns both AsimCDFS and CDROM-FS, and he says
that the latest version of CDROM-FS is "noticeably" faster than AsimCDFS.
He also says that AsimCDFS's diskchange detection did not work for his CDROM
drive, an LMSI 214, but CDROM-FS's works. (AsimCDFS's detection works fine
for my Toshiba, and I notice that Mike's drive is not on Asimware's
"supported" list.)

	I chose AsimCDFS over the other programs because (at the time) it
was the only system that supported all three different CDROM formats,
and because it came with a "free" Fish CDROM disc.


BUGS AND STRANGENESS

	I encountered a number of strange occurrences while using AsimCDFS.
All of them (except one) are not serious, and I have reported them to
Asimware.

	AsimCDFS

	o	If you use the program "WShell 2.0", you'll see that
		WShell appears to have problems seeing the volume name
		of your CDROM disc.  This is due to a bug in AsimCDFS;
		thanks to Bill Hawes for helping me find it.
		The problem does not appear when using the Commodore shell.
		
		(Technical details:  if ParentDir() is called on the
		root of a volume, it correctly returns NULL.  However,
		AsimCDFS treats this NULL as an error, and stuffs the
		wrong value into IoErr() -- 211, "invalid object lock."
		Thus, any program that follows the chain of parents,
		such as WShell, will see an incorrect error condition.)

	o	There is a buggy interaction between AsimCDFS and
		Loren Rittle's "ls" version 4.5LJR.  Neither Loren nor
		I know whether the bug lies in "ls" or AsimCDFS.
		"ls" is unable to list individual files on a CDROM disc
		when their names are given as arguments, like this:
		
			1> ls file1 file2 file3		(does not work)

		"ls" prints nothing at all if these files exist.
		However, listing directories works, and listing using
		wildcards works:

			1> ls				(works fine)
			1> ls myDirectory		(works fine)
			1> ls a#?			(works fine)

		The problem does not appear when using Commodore's "List"
		command.

	o	The filesystem (cd0:) produces strange results when given
		to the "Version" command:

			1> version cd0:
			Warning: pre-2.0 filesystem

	o	CDROM discs always appear to be 100% full to the "Info"
		command and other similar commands.  Perhaps this
		is impossible to prevent, but it would be nice if AsimCDFS
		could indicate how much of the CDROM's capacity has
		actually been used.

	o	While AsimCDFS is running, the Amiga's drive activity
		light flashes briefly every 2 seconds.  According to Mike
		Meyer, this is due to AsimCDFS's checking for disc insertion.

	AsimTunes

	o	This is the only SERIOUS problem.  I wrote a short script
		to invoke AsimTunes, eject the current CDROM, and then
		shut down AsimTunes.

		/* Eject the CDROM */
		CDPORT	= 'AsimTunesRexx.1'
		IF ~Show('P', CDPORT) THEN DO
			ADDRESS COMMAND 'run > NIL: < NIL: AsimTunes cd0:'
			WaitForPort CDPORT
		END

		ADDRESS VALUE CDPORT
		'EJECTCD'
		'SHUTDOWN'

		Unfortunately, this occasionally causes the Amiga to crash.
		Once, it crashed so badly that the "Insert Workbench Disk"
		picture appeared, even though my "Workbench Disk" is my
		hard drive!  This worried me a lot, but a reboot made the
		system come up OK.
		
		I cannot see anything wrong with this script, so I blame
		AsimTunes for the crashes.

	o	Typing the command 
	
			1> AsimTunes ?
			
		does not produce a usage message.  Instead, AsimTunes tries
		to open a file called "?".  Thus, AsimTunes is not
		compliant with Commodore's "User Interface Style Guide".

	o	The ARexx command documentation shows the command names
		using mixed case.  However, the commands are accepted only
		in upper case.



SUPPORT

	I have called Asimware several times with questions.  The person on
the phone, who I believe was Paul Reeves, was courteous and helpful every
time.

	One conversation with Asimware was quite interesting.  They plan
to market a CDTV emulation package, and a music librarian for your compact
discs.


CONCLUSIONS

	AsimCDFS is a good product.  It installs easily, works as
advertised, and has no serious bugs that I could detect.  In addition,
$50.00 (mailorder) for a CDROM filesystem and a Fred Fish CDROM is a
bargain; in comparison, the CPR filesystem plus Hypermedia disc would
cost $44 + $37 = $81 by mailorder.

	AsimTunes is a simple CD player which works OK, except for
the "eject" mechanism, which I do not trust.

	FishMarket is reasonably well organized and a great resource to
have around.


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	This review is Copyright 1992 Daniel J. Barrett.
	All rights reserved.
	It may be freely distributed as long as it is distributed unmodified.

---

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