CDROM device and CDFS numberings

Where is better documentation?

I have gleaned some info from newsgroups etc over the years. There are also some StrongHelp ‘programming’ manuals with some info. The CDFS manual is fairly sparse in detail. The StrongHelp OS manual has a section on CD and CDFS. The info I posted earlier came from that one. I use OSLib and there is a StrongHelp manual for that as well, although the detail in that is primarily focussed on using the calls.

As far as I undersand it, if using the mode 0 lba mode, you do not have to worry about using times or offsets, just the start block and number of blocks to read. The details of start block for a track and length of track can be found from other calls such as cd_enquire_one_track (an oslib function based upon the corresponding SWI), but it is a long time since I wrote my ripper, so memory is a bit hazy without getting back into the source code.

There are also some StrongHelp ‘programming’ manuals with some info.

Can you point me at a URL, please for ones on CDFS/CD swis? I do have a stronghelp manual for CDFS / CDFSDriver 2.21 by David Thomas (2 Jun 1996) which is clearly old and incomplete. Apart from that some old text lists of swis for CD_ from May 2002, also incomplete. Neither cover the different modes for CD_ReadAudio. Hence my bafflement at your question!

I wrote ClassicRip for two reasons. One is the obvious: I wanted a ripper that was more convenient for use on ‘classical music’ CDs. This is because I have a lot of old home-recorded CDRs made using an AudioCD recorder of concerts, etc mainly Radio3. Wanted to get more organised and put these onto harddisc.[¹]

The other is to help me understand the CD_/CDFS_ swis well enough to document them and outline/example their use. I’m still working on the ‘ROSS’ documents I want to produce. Having released a rough draft of where I’d got to some months ago I started on the audio CD and realised I didn’t understand it or have decent/reliable documents. So started looking at writing a ripper as an aid to learning.

At that point Colin and Dave started implimenting USB Audio. 8-] That was too exciting to miss or ignore, so I put CD on pause whilst I got involved in helping testing that and writing some demos. Now that’s working nicely I’ve gone back to CD! Once this is clear I’ll add both CD and USB Audio to the document I’m writing and make the newer, extended version public for people to criticise. ;→

[ Which also means that at some point I’ll have to start asking when the USB Audio will get into the ROOL OS releases… ;→ ]

Jim

[¹] More recently I’ve taken to making 96k/24 recordings direct to files. Better quality and dodges the limitations of AudioCD. e.g. no problem recording an entire concert without any gaps. I still buy audio CDs, though. But then I still buys some LPs as well. 8-]

Can you point me at a URL, please for ones on CDFS/CD swis?

You young ones these days want it on a plate 8)

Google is your friend, or not, as you prefer. I entered ‘risc os stronghelp manual’ and the first entry in the returned list was

http://www.riscos.info/downloads/stronghelp/manuals/

That contains a large list of various manuals, including the ones I mentioned.

Added: os336 is probably one you might need.

You young ones these days want it on a plate 8)

Given that I retired (sic) a few years ago that’s the nicest compliment I’ve had today! ;→

Thanks for the link. :-)

Jim

StrongHelp “OS” manual has all the info. For old time stuff, look for Acorn application notes 273 and 293. PRM 5a has a CDFS section, but does not detail SWI calls, but only star cmds. “We will soon replace CDFS2 with a serious CD filing system” – fat chance.

One of the best docs is the cdfs driver construction SDK from the early years, but this was never freely available.