Forget the Power Macs and Pentium PCs, argues Danny McAleer, with the right CD-ROM drive and software, the humble Atari ST can hold its own...

Whatever happens in the way of computer technology developments in the next few years, it's going to be a while before I completely give up my 4Mbyte STe in favour of another machine as my main platform. Although it is beginning to look more like a lump of grey plastic than the worldbeater it was once regarded as, the addition of a CD-ROM drive has certainly given it a new lease of life. So, while it isn't as compact as a PC, and looks more laden with peripherals than a Christmas tree, at least I don't have to load an operating system (oops!).

Spiteful comments aside (I really don't mind Windows too much), practically any SCSI or SCSI-2 device can be used with the ST, although some do apparently require some hardware modifications before they actually work. The Atari is quite fussy about termination, and so any CD-ROM drive you connect must first have its internal terminators removed (the black plugs inside the case on the back of the mechanism). Fortunately, System Solutions perform any necessary surgery on the CD-ROM drive before you get it, so you're ready to plug'n'play. They can supply either a standard SCSI drive like the Matshita drive I used, or one of the Sony CD300 (or Apple Mac) CD-ROM drives.

The drive is connected to the STe or STfm via a host adaptor called the Translator, aptly enough. When Atari got around to the Falcon, they shrewdly plumped for standard SCSI connections, so all you need is a 2-way 50-pin SCSI cable. If you have more than one SCSI device (like a hard disk), you must also purchase an additional cable, to daisy-chain them together.

It actually doesn't seem to matter which is first in the chain, but it is sensible to keep them in order of SCSI device IDs, I suppose. The CD-ROM drive is set to SCSI device ID 5, but you can change it if this conflicts with anything else in your system. If it doesn't, it is best to leave it as it is.

Software driving

There should by rights be a CD-ROM drive attached to the ST via the ACSI port by now, but for the moment you'll have to remind your poor old Atari of its presence. This is what the accompanying software, ExtenDOS Pro does, introducing the ST and drive to a wealth of stimulating communication, like playing games.

The manual gives a step-by-step guide to installing the software on to the boot partition of the hard disk, which is surprisingly straightforward. You first have to copy EXTENDOS.PRG to the auto folder on drive c:\(or whatever your boot partition is labelled with), and then create another folder titled Extendos, and put this in the root directory.

In here, the CD.BOS and UNIDRIVE.DOS programs go, as well as the (optional) CD audio executable program and its resource (.RSC) file. The last part is to copy the EXTENDOS.CFG file to either the root directory, or into the auto folder alongside the program file. The program first looks in the root directory for the config file, so this is the best place to put it, unless you like to keep your drives as tidy as possible.

ExtenDOS also allows you to play audio CDs in the CD-ROM drive, in conjunction with the CD Audio program. There is also an accessory version which you can copy onto the boot drive to recall from the desktop menu. CD Audio works just like a normal CD player, with all the transport controls (skip, rewind, fast forward, play, and so on), as well as an eject and volume control. On some drives, these last two options may not work, and so you will have to use the physical controls on the drive itself, which is no real hardship.

It isn't impossible to use ExtenDOS without a hard disk, however. You need only create a boot disk, or modify your existing one, save all the necessary files to it, and then just make sure you switch on and boot up with it every time. None of the programs are very large, so you can easily fit these, and any other accessories or auto programs, onto a 720K disk.

Configured

If you want to make any modifications to the way ExtenDOS sets itself up, say, if you want to change the device ID to 6 instead of the default value of 5, or indeed if you're booting from the floppy drive, then you need to get hold of a text editor. Then, load the EXTENDOS.CFG file and start hacking it to bits.

The configuration file with ExtenDOS contains just two lines of actual code, the rest are REM or remark statements, which are there just to explain the commands. The first line is for the physical driver (CD.BOS), and concerns itself with the device ID, tracing, the physical device letter, and where the CD.BOS file can be located to read. The actual default line reads: *BOS, C:\EXTENDOS\CD.BOS T=16Z:5. Changing the C:\ to A:\ will allow you to boot from floppy disk. Z:5 is the physical device letter (which is arbitrary, although it must be a letter unused by your system), and the SCSI ID number.

The second line is for the logical driver (UNIDRIVE.DOS), which allows the CD-ROM discs to be read by GEM. Most of the commands here are really only useful for obtaining drive compatibility (options like reserving buffers for path tables and so on), although you also specify where the UNIDRIVE.DOS file can be found to be read, and you can choose an actual drive letter (P is the default) to appear on the GEM desktop.

To actually access the CD-ROM drive, you have to create a desktop icon with the icon identifier of 'p'. Obviously, if you've made any alterations to the drive letter, then use that instead, else GEM won't find your drive. If you have TOS2.0 or later, or one of the replacement desktops like NeoDesk or TeraDesk, you can give it a CD icon, which will always impress your lover (well, perhaps not...).

Then, remember to save the desktop, else you'll have to repeat this every time you boot up, and then you can then access the CD-ROM drive exactly the same way you do a floppy drive (that means it doesn't work when there's nothing in it).

Verdict

Although a CD-ROM drive on the Atari will never really receive the same attention by software manufacturers as the omnipotent PC-owning megalomaniac's CD-ROM drive, it is doubtlessly an essential tool. (Do I detect a computer chip on the shoulder? - Ed). With the cost of CD-R becoming evermore sensible, and indeed all these places which offer to take all your data and put it on a CD for you, it is perhaps one of the best forms of hard disk back-up media you could imagine.

Couple this with the wealth of MS-DOS compatible CD-ROMs with MIDI files, samples, graphics, film, and text files which are mostly compatible with the STs and Falcon, and the few Atari-specific CD-ROMs with PD and shareware, and it's the most fun you can have with your monitors on.