Recommendations for burning a CD-R for testing?

[Bernie]

You can get some used caps on the cheap, just ask NW. 

[Bonknuts]

I don't know if you're writing your own dev stuff for CD, but there's a few cool things you can do with the PCE CD format.

While the syscard doesn't support ISO-9660 format, you can make such formatted/layout discs boot on the system. The system card only cares what index 01 is in terms of LBA (index 01 is the end of the pre-gap and the start of the track). You can align it to something specifically fixed in a real ISO (a file) to boot from.

 Or, you can exploit a trick defined way back.. that the first track can have a near infinite size pregap definition (some professional companies hidden music tracks in the pregap like this, so you had to 'rewind' into it in order to hear it). The system always looks for index 01, of any track (data). So you can hide an ISO binary inside the pregap area, and have the PCE code after that. Both PCs and SegaCD, use a hard coded offset that's equivalent to a 2 second pregap. I say equivalent, because it uses the LBA instead of "indexes". I was able to make a dual boot SegaCD/PCE-CD disc this way.

 But yeah, both ways work. The second method means you can't access the ISO binary though, even if it is on the same data track. The first method means you can, but if you want to actually handle parsing the CDFS table - you'll have to write that code yourself.

[elmer]

I don't know if you're writing your own dev stuff for CD, but there's a few cool things you can do with the PCE CD format.

While the syscard doesn't support ISO-9660 format, you can make such formatted/layout discs boot on the system.

I'd just put my own mini-filesystem on a data track ... that's the easiest way to handle things ... and generally how Western developers handled things in those days from what I remember.

Even on consoles that supported an ISO-9660 filesystem, you'll usually find that the developers have stored files inside large .PAK/.ZIP/.SOMETHING container files.

That's usually because ...
1) The OS's filehandling usually sucked and introduced large seek delays between (and sometimes within) files.
2) It's easier to control the organization of data on the disk.
3) It made it harder for both consumers and publishers to identify what's on the disc (and there was usually some stuff there that shouldn't have been there ... mostly files from previous projects that never got cleaned up).

I was able to make a dual boot SegaCD/PCE-CD disc this way.

That's a nice trick, thanks!

I'd love to know if it's possible to make a PCE/PC-FX or a PC-FX/Saturn dual-boot this way. 

[NightWolve]

You can get some used caps on the cheap, just ask NW. 

=) They did go in the garbage and I got my money back. A lot more reversible than a hair-dried Turbo Duo.

[BlueBMW]

I noticed that MAM-A also sells silver 650mb archive discs.  I should give them a shot too.

[cjameslv]

I noticed that MAM-A also sells silver 650mb archive discs.  I should give them a shot too.

Gold & Silver discs lol bling bling

[Arkhan]

If you're burning simple test programs that only ever load one time, you can get away with burning the shit however because what it's loading is hardly effort.

It's when you have a game that does frequent loading that it's a real problem.

So if it's some stupid little test program that's like, 32k, just slap it on a decent CD-R however.

[thesteve]

the replacement lasers are not better then stock, but a well tuned duo will read anything
the "parked laser" is a problem with a bad burn or damaged disc, when the system loses track of the track count while moving outward.
it can happen (and does) with any disc, when the laser is having trouble maintaining focus during track change.

[Bonknuts]

I don't know if you're writing your own dev stuff for CD, but there's a few cool things you can do with the PCE CD format.

While the syscard doesn't support ISO-9660 format, you can make such formatted/layout discs boot on the system.

I'd just put my own mini-filesystem on a data track ... that's the easiest way to handle things ... and generally how Western developers handled things in those days from what I remember.

Even on consoles that supported an ISO-9660 filesystem, you'll usually find that the developers have stored files inside large .PAK/.ZIP/.SOMETHING container files.

That's usually because ...
1) The OS's filehandling usually sucked and introduced large seek delays between (and sometimes within) files.
2) It's easier to control the organization of data on the disk.
3) It made it harder for both consumers and publishers to identify what's on the disc (and there was usually some stuff there that shouldn't have been there ... mostly files from previous projects that never got cleaned up).

 Oh, no doubt. Yeah, CDFS is unnecessary for PCECD needs. My point was more to you can make dual boot or dual compatible CD, not for the PCE itself to read the file system. That would be for whatever system that reads it (PC? etc). You could put instructions, source, tutorials, whatever - on the ISO-9660 side. Stuff like that.

 The first method was an easier way to where a file is always at a fixed location in the ISO itself, and not that the PCE needed to read the ISO fat to access it; it (pce data) would just co-exist with the file system. Anyway, just fun stuff.

I'd love to know if it's possible to make a PCE/PC-FX or a PC-FX/Saturn dual-boot this way. 

 Never did Saturn dev. That would be interesting. I know the PCFX can identify PCE CDs, so I'm not sure how to make a dual boot CD for that. Mednafen author might know.

[elmer]

the replacement lasers are not better then stock, but a well tuned duo will read anything

That's good to know! Perhaps I don't need to stock up on new lasers for the TurboDuo (already got a couple for the SuperCDROM).

the "parked laser" is a problem with a bad burn or damaged disc, when the system loses track of the track count while moving outward.
it can happen (and does) with any disc, when the laser is having trouble maintaining focus during track change.

I believe that that's one of (and maybe the only) reason for recommending 650mb CD-Rs over 700MB CD-Rs ... less dense tracks make them easier to follow.

I'm really curious to try Yamaha's old AMQR technology on a couple of disks to see if it makes any difference to the old CDROM2 and TurboDuo drives. It certainly couldn't hurt.

[NightWolve]

Just FYI out of interest, but that unlicensed Games Express card moved the system to the ISO file standard. Games like High Leg Fantasy are regular looking data CDs with lots of data files that make up the game.

[elmer]

You could put instructions, source, tutorials, whatever - on the ISO-9660 side. Stuff like that.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of it in those terms.

It might be cool to put the source code and PC development environment on a pressed-disc for people to play with.

Never did Saturn dev. That would be interesting. I know the PCFX can identify PCE CDs, so I'm not sure how to make a dual boot CD for that. Mednafen author might know.

I get the horrible feeling that they all boot in very similar ways ... so it may well not work. Plenty of time to check that later.

[Mednafen]

PCE CD BIOS will only boot from the first data track(assuming it has the magic), while the PC-FX BIOS searches for and uses the first data track that has the PC-FX magic.  If that's still not clear, just look at "Battle Heat", it's dual-boot PCE CD and PC-FX.

[elmer]

PCE CD BIOS will only boot from the first data track(assuming it has the magic), while the PC-FX BIOS searches for and uses the first data track that has the PC-FX magic.  If that's still not clear, just look at "Battle Heat", it's dual-boot PCE CD and PC-FX.

Thanks for the info ... that's perfectly clear, and wonderfully flexible on the PC-FX's part for the time that it came out!

So data track 1 would contain the PCE boot data, data track 2 would contain the PC-FX boot data, and you could have shared data on data track 3 (or anywhere).

It looks like the Saturn is expecting to boot off data track 1, too ... so I don't think that a triple-boot will be possible ... but it looks like the 2 combinations that interest me the most PCE/PC-FX and Saturn/PC-FX should be possible.