"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

The Answer Guy

By James T. Dennis, answerguy@ssc.com
Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

The beginning of this thread was published in Issue 30, DAO (Disk At Once) CDR? Stump Me!

DAO software for linux?

From Mark Heath on Sat, 27 Jun 1998

On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Jim Dennis wrote:

Well, you have me stumped.

I don't know anything about the difference between DAO and other forms of CDR recording. Normally, I'd spend an

There are 3 different types of cd recording: Track at once, Disk at once and session at once.

I figured it was probably something like that.

cdrecord, cdwrite and many others do Track at once.

Its where the software writes a track turns off the laser, turns it back on then writes the next track, after all the tracks are done it writes the leadin and lead out tracks.

I've always been curious about multi-session CD's and how they maintain the directory/indices on them. But never curious enough to look for the rainbow of books that define the spec. --- more of a "layperson's armchair" curiousity that would be satisfied with a five minute description and a couple of diagrams.

With disk at once, the laser is turned on, the leadin is written, then the first track, second track etc, then te lead out and then the laser is turned off.

The has the advantage of being able to master music disks which have no pauses in between the tracks, which is manditory for TAO.

I think you mean "which is an avoidable result when using TAO." It's just a semantic nitpick --- but I had to read this statement several times to guess what you (probably) meant.

Session at once is basically multi session DAO.

Huh? I am also a bit foggy on multi-session CD's --- but I'd thought that the sessions on multi-session CD's were supposed to be on track boundaries. Are you saying there's a multi-session per track option?

hour or two hunting around on Alta Vista, Yahoo!, Savvy Search, DejaNews, etc and pulling out more of my hair to find out. However, I have a book to write and a wife to feed, and it is just too close to my deadline for me to wait until tomorrow.

So, what is DAO and why would you need it? What is the difference between cdrecord and cdwrite (the one I use with my Ricoh CDR)? Have you tried them both? What is MMC? Who is Jeff Arnold? Who are HyCD and should we

cdrecord is the replacement for cdwrite, Jorg Schilly supports every unix platform that can have a cdr plugged into.

MMC is the latest multi media specification for CDRs so that all drives have the same command set for recording.

I did guess that MMC stood for "multi-media CD" or "multi-media CDR." I take it that MMC doesn't define a standard for DAO mode recording? (Or were you simply saying that your HP SureStore CDR doesn't support the MMC CDR spec?).

Jeff Arnold is synonimous (sp?) with DAO software he wrote the First and most widely used DAO software for DOS. Its a pity that he won't support Unix because his tools are very unix like.

Maybe he could be bribed. Does he distribute his package as shareware? Would he be willing to license the code and let someone else do the port?

HyCD are who alta vista turned up when I did A search for +unix +cdr +software. They support mixed mode disk duplication, which why I thought it did DAO. Unfortunately it does not.

I'm afraid to ask.... what is the difference between "mixed mode" and DAO? Is it that HyCD can duplicate CD's that have mixed data and audio (etc?), and/or that it can read tracks that were laid down in TAO and DAO (and other?) modes but it must write them in TAO?

I was trying to eliminate a need for my Windows box but things keep popping onto it.

I use it for 3 things:

1. Audio manipulation. I'm waiting for a good tool (Atech is being developed) to do this under Linux ala Cooledit (not to be confused with the Linux text editor)
2. DAO writing.
3. Epson Stylus colour printing. Ghostscript just doesn't match the quality.

Well, hopefully this will inspire someone out there to "raise the bar" and help you purge Windows from your system at long last.

I did use it for Playstation development but now I have the tools for Linux.

Thank you very much for your help.
Mark.

Well, I obviously wasn't much help --- but we'll see if our readership will give us a scoop...

Mark Heath fills us in...

From The Answer Guy on Mon, 29 Jun 1998

On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Jim Dennis wrote:

Its where the software writes a track turns off the laser, turns it back on then writes the next track, after all the tracks are done it writes the leadin and lead out tracks.

I've always been curious about multi-session CD's and how they maintain the directory/indices on them. But never curious enough to look for the rainbow of books that define the spec. --- more of a "layperson's armchair" curiousity that would be satisfied with a five minute description and a couple of diagrams.

I've never successfully written a multisession CD either. I've made a few open disks but never managed to import the previous session properly so I didn't bother trying to continue writing to them. Just in case I lost the first session.

Session at once is basically multi session DAO.

Huh? I am also a bit foggy on multi-session CD's --- but I'd thought that the sessions on multi-session CD's were supposed to be on track boundaries. Are you saying there's a multi-session per track option?

This is correct. For example you can write 3 tracks multisession using DAO. Then come back later and write a few more tracks using DAO.

MMC is the latest multi media specification for CDRs so that all drives have the same command set for recording.

I did guess that MMC stood for "multi-media CD" or "multi-media CDR." I take it that MMC doesn't define a standard for DAO mode recording? (Or were you simply saying that your HP SureStore CDR doesn't support the MMC CDR spec?).

The 4020i doesn't support MMC. Only new drives do (most of the IDE CD-Rs do, and the CD-RW do)

Jeff Arnold is synonimous (sp?) with DAO software he wrote the First and most widely used DAO software for DOS. Its a pitty that he wont support Unix because his tools are very unix like.

Maybe he could be bribed. Does he distribute his package as shareware? Would he be willing to license the code

He does. The downloadable version is available at:

http://www.goldenhawk.com/

and let someone else do the port?

I'd really like that but I dont know how Jeff feels about Linux.

He seemed rather hostile when I asked about doing a linux port. All his reply was: no.

HyCD are who alta vista turned up when I did A search for +unix +cdr +software. They support mixed mode disk duplication, which why I thought it did DAO. Unfortunately it does not.

I'm afraid to ask.... what is the difference between "mixed mode" and DAO? Is it that HyCD can duplicate CD's that have mixed data and audio (etc?), and/or that it can read tracks that were laid down in TAO and DAO (and other?) modes but it must write them in TAO?

Mixed mode is simply multiple tracks with different data formats. The most common is Computer games with 1 data track followed by several Audio tracks, these can be written with TAO.

The main difference between DAO and TAO is that for DAO the laser is never turned off during the recording. You can even do a single track in DAO mode. The difference here is that DAO disks can be taken to CD publishing company while TAO disks can not (due to gaps in the track data, where the laser has been turned off)

Well, hopefully this will inspire someone out there to "raise the bar" and help you purge Windows from your system at long last.

Well I did this some time ago, purge windows. Then a piece of hardware came out which was built into the motherboard so I built a new machine and put both Linux and 95 on it.

My primary box is Linux only.

Well, I obviously wasn't much help --- but we'll see if our readership will give us a scoop...

Well Its always good to hear that someone understands and says Lets see what we can do.

Copyright © 1998, James T. Dennis
Published in Linux Gazette Issue 31 August 1998

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