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comp.lang.lisp

Symbolics Lisp Machine CD

Jeff Barnett

3/11/2016 6:48:00 AM

I have an old CD that was the Symbolics distribution of Genera 8.3
Worlds, Sources, and Bundled Products. I want to copy the Sources to my
Win 7 machine.

Go back 30 years in your memory and recall that these CDs came in a
plastic package such that the CD reader could open a slot (a metal
slide) and stick its read head inside. In other words, the CD never came
outside the package. If I break this package off, will the resultant
disk be readable on a modern machine? (Insert cracks about Windows and
the word modern here.)

My concerns are spindle hole size and disk size in addition to format
issues. I have a Blu-ray/DVD/CD and a DVD/CD reader-printer on the
windows machine. Any pointers as to how to access the material would be
appreciated.
--
Jeff Barnett
6 Answers

Rainer Joswig

3/11/2016 10:04:00 AM

0

On 2016-03-11 06:48:16 +0000, Jeff Barnett said:

I don't use CDROMs anymore and I'm not a Windows user. Macs with CDROM
drives can read it just fine.
Though the Symbolics CDROM is slightly special. It has two data tracks.
One with a Mac file system and one ISO file system. The Mac file system
is useful for a MacIvory, where it contains the Mac software for the
Macivory. The ISO file system on the other data track contains the Lisp
Machine software.
On a newer Mac with OSX one needs to mount this data track using a command like

mount -t cd9660 /dev/disk1s1

where you need to tell the Mac the correct device address.

> I have an old CD that was the Symbolics distribution of Genera 8.3
> Worlds, Sources, and Bundled Products. I want to copy the Sources to my
> Win 7 machine.
>
> Go back 30 years in your memory and recall that these CDs came in a
> plastic package such that the CD reader could open a slot (a metal
> slide) and stick its read head inside. In other words, the CD never
> came outside the package. If I break this package off, will the
> resultant disk be readable on a modern machine? (Insert cracks about
> Windows and the word modern here.)
>
> My concerns are spindle hole size and disk size in addition to format
> issues. I have a Blu-ray/DVD/CD and a DVD/CD reader-printer on the
> windows machine. Any pointers as to how to access the material would be
> appreciated.

Jeff Barnett

3/11/2016 6:40:00 PM

0

But can I just remove the plastic box that the CD is in and go from there?

Rainer Joswig wrote on 3/11/2016 3:03 AM:
> On 2016-03-11 06:48:16 +0000, Jeff Barnett said:
>
> I don't use CDROMs anymore and I'm not a Windows user. Macs with CDROM
> drives can read it just fine.
> Though the Symbolics CDROM is slightly special. It has two data tracks.
> One with a Mac file system and one ISO file system. The Mac file system
> is useful for a MacIvory, where it contains the Mac software for the
> Macivory. The ISO file system on the other data track contains the Lisp
> Machine software.
> On a newer Mac with OSX one needs to mount this data track using a
> command like
>
> mount -t cd9660 /dev/disk1s1
>
> where you need to tell the Mac the correct device address.
>
>> I have an old CD that was the Symbolics distribution of Genera 8.3
>> Worlds, Sources, and Bundled Products. I want to copy the Sources to
>> my Win 7 machine.
>>
>> Go back 30 years in your memory and recall that these CDs came in a
>> plastic package such that the CD reader could open a slot (a metal
>> slide) and stick its read head inside. In other words, the CD never
>> came outside the package. If I break this package off, will the
>> resultant disk be readable on a modern machine? (Insert cracks about
>> Windows and the word modern here.)
>>
>> My concerns are spindle hole size and disk size in addition to format
>> issues. I have a Blu-ray/DVD/CD and a DVD/CD reader-printer on the
>> windows machine. Any pointers as to how to access the material would
>> be appreciated.
>
>

Rainer Joswig

3/11/2016 7:15:00 PM

0

On 2016-03-11 18:39:57 +0000, Jeff Barnett said:

> But can I just remove the plastic box that the CD is in and go from there?

sure. Most newer CDROM drives don't use a caddy.

>
> Rainer Joswig wrote on 3/11/2016 3:03 AM:
>> On 2016-03-11 06:48:16 +0000, Jeff Barnett said:
>>
>> I don't use CDROMs anymore and I'm not a Windows user. Macs with CDROM
>> drives can read it just fine.
>> Though the Symbolics CDROM is slightly special. It has two data tracks.
>> One with a Mac file system and one ISO file system. The Mac file system
>> is useful for a MacIvory, where it contains the Mac software for the
>> Macivory. The ISO file system on the other data track contains the Lisp
>> Machine software.
>> On a newer Mac with OSX one needs to mount this data track using a
>> command like
>>
>> mount -t cd9660 /dev/disk1s1
>>
>> where you need to tell the Mac the correct device address.
>>
>>> I have an old CD that was the Symbolics distribution of Genera 8.3
>>> Worlds, Sources, and Bundled Products. I want to copy the Sources to
>>> my Win 7 machine.
>>>
>>> Go back 30 years in your memory and recall that these CDs came in a
>>> plastic package such that the CD reader could open a slot (a metal
>>> slide) and stick its read head inside. In other words, the CD never
>>> came outside the package. If I break this package off, will the
>>> resultant disk be readable on a modern machine? (Insert cracks about
>>> Windows and the word modern here.)
>>>
>>> My concerns are spindle hole size and disk size in addition to format
>>> issues. I have a Blu-ray/DVD/CD and a DVD/CD reader-printer on the
>>> windows machine. Any pointers as to how to access the material would
>>> be appreciated.

josephoswald+gg@gmail.com

3/11/2016 7:45:00 PM

0

On Friday, March 11, 2016 at 1:40:02 PM UTC-5, Jeff Barnett wrote:
> But can I just remove the plastic box that the CD is in and go from there?

Keep in mind that "plastic box" a.k.a. a caddy, is necessary to use certain CD-ROM drives from that era, including certain drives that would have been attached to a Symbolics-era Macintosh. If you break or discard the caddy, the *drive* is useless, though the disk is fine. They go for about US$10 on eBay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w...(hardware)

At the time CD-ROMs were introduced for data, the CD-ROMs would often cost hundreds of dollars, so it was nice to have a safe enclosed environment to get the valuable and somewhat fragile disk in and out of the drive without damage.

An additional note: one of my set of 4 Symbolics CD-ROMs had some kind of error in its formatting, so that it would not mount properly: IIRC it was missing the standard 32KB ISO 9660 header for the ISO partition. I had to manually prefix a header of zeros to the image for it to mount properly on my Mac OS X system.

>
> Rainer Joswig wrote on 3/11/2016 3:03 AM:
> > On 2016-03-11 06:48:16 +0000, Jeff Barnett said:
> >
> > I don't use CDROMs anymore and I'm not a Windows user. Macs with CDROM
> > drives can read it just fine.
> > Though the Symbolics CDROM is slightly special. It has two data tracks.
> > One with a Mac file system and one ISO file system. The Mac file system
> > is useful for a MacIvory, where it contains the Mac software for the
> > Macivory. The ISO file system on the other data track contains the Lisp
> > Machine software.
> > On a newer Mac with OSX one needs to mount this data track using a
> > command like
> >
> > mount -t cd9660 /dev/disk1s1
> >
> > where you need to tell the Mac the correct device address.
> >
> >> I have an old CD that was the Symbolics distribution of Genera 8.3
> >> Worlds, Sources, and Bundled Products. I want to copy the Sources to
> >> my Win 7 machine.
> >>
> >> Go back 30 years in your memory and recall that these CDs came in a
> >> plastic package such that the CD reader could open a slot (a metal
> >> slide) and stick its read head inside. In other words, the CD never
> >> came outside the package. If I break this package off, will the
> >> resultant disk be readable on a modern machine? (Insert cracks about
> >> Windows and the word modern here.)
> >>
> >> My concerns are spindle hole size and disk size in addition to format
> >> issues. I have a Blu-ray/DVD/CD and a DVD/CD reader-printer on the
> >> windows machine. Any pointers as to how to access the material would
> >> be appreciated.
> >
> >

Paul Rubin

3/11/2016 10:01:00 PM

0

Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> writes:
> Go back 30 years in your memory and recall that these CDs came in a
> plastic package... If I break this package off, will the
> resultant disk be readable on a modern machine?

If that's an actual CD-ROM, the plastic package is called a caddy and
you don't have to break it off, you just lift off the cover and take the
CD out. Then you should be able to read the raw CD in a standard CD
drive. I don't have any idea what file system format it might use.

Jeff Barnett

3/15/2016 3:15:00 PM

0

Jeff Barnett wrote on 3/10/2016 11:48 PM:
> I have an old CD that was the Symbolics distribution of Genera 8.3
> Worlds, Sources, and Bundled Products. I want to copy the Sources to my
> Win 7 machine.
>
> Go back 30 years in your memory and recall that these CDs came in a
> plastic package such that the CD reader could open a slot (a metal
> slide) and stick its read head inside. In other words, the CD never came
> outside the package. If I break this package off, will the resultant
> disk be readable on a modern machine? (Insert cracks about Windows and
> the word modern here.)
>
> My concerns are spindle hole size and disk size in addition to format
> issues. I have a Blu-ray/DVD/CD and a DVD/CD reader-printer on the
> windows machine. Any pointers as to how to access the material would be
> appreciated.

Thanks to all that answered. I tried to remove the caddy (around 30 yrs
old!) and it shattered into dust. I was able to read the CD with no
problem after cleaning with compressed air. There may have been a way to
pop the caddy open but I think the materials were past there "use by" date.
--
Jeff Barnett