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Burning CDs

on the PowerBook

500, 190, 5300 and 1400

The Bad:
Slowly.

The ugly:
With limitations.

So before you think about burning CDs with your 'Book, you shouldreally think about whether it's just going to be occasional use, orwhether you're going to make stacks of music CDs and data backup CDs.The limitations of the non-PCI PowerBooks aside, the software andhow-to sections might prove useful to people using newer PowerBooks.Similarly, if you're using a 100 series PowerBook, don't beput off!! Many people have used both Duosand PowerBook 160s and 180sto burn CDs successfully. This includes PowerBook150s as well. On the 160/165/180, as long as you max out the RAM(14MB) and run a fairly spartan system, you'll have no trouble. Dittothe Duos and PB150, although they're a bit easier as their RAMcapacities are that much larger. The 100-series PB run the same oldSCSI chip (see below) as the 68LC040 and early PPC PowerBooks (5300and 1400) and thus the difference in SCSI throughput is nominal andis not particularly affected by CPU speed. I don't know whetheryou'll be able to do it on your maxed-out PowerBook100, but I'll let you in on a little secret: install Toast CDReader 4.0 on your Mac Classic and the damn thing works with your CDburner! (No, I'm not game to write a column entitled 'Burning CDs ona 4MB Mac Classic'). So. The bottom line here is what I'm going tosay here essentially applies equally to the 100 series 'Books.

There's a reason your PowerBook 500,190,5300 or 1400isn't an optimal choice for burning: none of these Macs support SCSIManager 4.3 I'm not going to explain it here; download Horst Pralow'soutstanding SCSI utility Mt. Everythingwhich has a detailed explanation of it. But briefly, SM 4.3 permitsmuch faster SCSI throughput as it not only involved a completerewrite of the SCSI management software in the Mac OS, but also a newSCSI chip.

Despite not having any NuBus slots, these four PowerBooks areesentially Duo-based and therefore represent NuBus architecture. Thefirst PowerBook to support SM 4.3, the 3400,has PCI-based architecture. In summary, these PBs have pretty slowSCSI. To make an unscientific comparison, the best SCSI throughput Iget on my 5300 to a Quantum Fireball drive (SCSI-2) is around 520Kper second. On the Quadra 700, I move data at 1.7MB (yes, that'smegaBYTES, not mere megaBITs) per second. When you consider thatburning at 6x requires a constant data stream of 900K per second (8xat 1200K p.s), that's a considerable difference.

Nevertheless, it's possible to burn on these PBs. It can even beuseful if you need to burn CDs at different locations. The only thingis to appreciate the limitations. Such as:

1. 1. You will never, ever burn at faster than 2x. Otherwise, you can start your own coaster factory.
2. 2. You may not get audio play-through on the 500, 190 and 5300. 1400s with CD ROMs are fine. But there's notionally no playthrough on the other three. I say 'notionally' because until recently, I thought this was written in stone. However, I have managed to get audio CDs to play on the 5300 with no special audio lines - just via the SCSI bus and through the 5300's mixed stereo speaker. The trick here was using CD ROM SpeedTools as the driver, rather than Toast's. Toast wouldn't let me mount the (Audio) CD on the desktop; CDRST would.

Frequently-Asked Silly Questions:

Q: Can I use an IDE burner?

A: No you can't. Stay away from them. They're lousy anyway(there's a reason they're 100 bucks cheaper and it's called having tosuffer installing them on intel hardware. You'll have successfullyburned 3 dozen CDs (even at 1x) before your wintel-toting friend hasfigured out the jumpers and the master/slave/secondary master configon his Compact eInterWeb whizbang Stinkpad 1GHZ 6000. The upside forhim/her is that all their friends will not be asking Mr/Ms. Wintel tocopy CDs for them. Given that Adaptec's stuffed full of defectingApple engineers when times got tough in '96, they also churn outoutstanding Mac burnerware and completely incomprehensible PCburnerware. This may not be entirely their fault as 'interfaceguidelines' essentially don't exist in the wintel world).

Q: Can I use a FireWire or USB burner?

A: Nyet. SCSI only.

Q: Can I get an internal CDR?

A: No. Well, not unless you happen to own aWallstreet/Lombard/Pismo as well, that is.

Software:

• Adaptec Toast < http://www.adaptec.com> Commercial. Note that there's a Deluxe and an OEM version. Unquestionably the # 1 Mac CD burning software. Adaptec's EAsy CD Windoze equivalent, despite supporting CD Text, doesn't come close in terms of clean interface and intuitive operation. Power users have found a number of bugs, but most users will never find any of them. v.3.5.8 is still bundled with some CDRs. Toast 4.0x (OEM) and Toast Deluxe 4.0 (the full commercial package) are the current (March 2000) versions. v.4.0 adds some features such as MP3 decoding and includes the Spin Doctor utility for recording your LPs and cassettes to AIFF sound files. Note that Spin Doctor is PPC only and works wit OS 8.5 or later.
• Discribe < http://www.charismac.com> Commercial. Toast's main competitor. A competent entry, but a messy interface which, like QuickTime 4.0 Player and SoundJam MP's more stupid skins, goes for a pseudo-professional interface design instead of absolute clarity and drag-and-drop operation like Toast.
• Adaptec Direct CD. This is for CDRWs, a control panel that lets you mounts CDRWs on the desktop as if they were floppies or Zips and burn data to them in drag-and-drop fashion. Very convenient, but with multiple sessions on a CDR (*not* CDRW), it wastes about 20MB each time it does 'packet writing' (i.e. each separate write to disk). But with CDRW, I like this baby. I backup a project about 3 times per day and it's so convenient to be able to mount a CDRW like a floppy or a Zip and just drag stuff to it. If you stuff up, you just erase the damn thing using the 'erase' command. Or do a full or quick erase using Toast. The downside of DirectCD is it hasn't been updated since about late 1998 and it doesn't support newer model burners. If you're using a 500/1400/5300/190, this doesn't matter a lot if you've got an older 2x burner. But changing a few bytes of info with ResEdit should get your newer burner recognised. I did this for the Yamaha 6416S and 8424S and it works just fine. I'd call it RD's DirectCD hack, but Adaptec would sue me, so I won't. One caveat though: use good quality CDRW media (Which ain't so expensive nowadays). That goes for most things. You can skimp on the burner (surprisingly enough) but don't skimp on the media. It's sorta like making a bad drink taste okay with a decent mixer. Are you with me?
• Astarte CD-Copy. Extracts and can edit - in minor ways - audio files you pull from CDs. Does some Jam-like (see below) stuff as well, such as audio editing and mastering. It works well, but its interface, IMHO, isn't as intuitive as Jam's.
• Adaptec Jam. Current version 2.5. Jam has been let go for the Mac to some extent, given that there's not a great deal of support for newer CDRs. It's possible Adaptec will release a 3.0 version to address these issues. But in the meantime, there's a driver file I hacked for the Yamaha 6416S. Also works for the Yamaha 8424S. If you're handy with ResEdit, you should be able to hack it yourself to work with Jam. But essentially, Jam is more professional audio mastering software which only burns audio CDs. Handy, but pretty pricey - i.e., much more than Toast. But as a general comment (IMHO), Jam does track spacing better than Toast and burns on cheap media much better. The net result is music CDs which play on older domestic CD players, as well as cheap, sensitive car and ghetto-blaster CD mechanisms.
• There're also more professional things you can use like Peak and MasterList, but they're not really to do with CD burning; more with audio mastering. Investigate them if you're into editing audio.

Other Excellent, Useful Stuff:

• Track Thief: Freeware. Extracts from CDs much better than the commercial CD Copy or Toast's Audio Extractor. Lets you pull tracks individually (say, a whole CD with individual tracks with indices, rather than simply extracting a CD in a single large file.
• SoundApp: Freeware. For virtually all your audio needs. Want to play MP3s on your PB190 or 500? Well you can't. But you can convert MP3 to .AIFF files on your 68K PowerBook. Slowly. It'll also convert files from 22KHz or with a bitrate of less than 128kbps to an .AIFF that Toast or Jam will accept. The PPC native version will do MP3 decoding a lot faster.
• SoundJam MP: Commercial. Cassidy & Green. PowerPC only. An MP3 player. Will convert MP3s to .AIFF or vice versa if requireds. There's a trialware version now (2.0) which works for 15 uses @ 1/2 an hour at a time. Not as fast as MPegger (see below) though I think.
• MPegger Drop Decoder: Freeware. My favourite MP3 decoder. Not especially fast on a 5300 or 1400 (it's PPC only), but it does the job very well. Just drag and drop. Much like Stuffit Expander in a lot of ways. Tip: if you're going to decode 20 or more MP3s, leave your CD and your 'Book on and go to bed. They'll be done in the morning.
• Load-a-Drive: Freeware. Excellent little app that mounts your CD on the desktop from your CD ROM player or CDR/W if you forget to switch it on when you booted. Or if you forgot to load the CD driver extension. Toast can sometimes do the same thing, but not all the time. Essentially works like SCSI Probe and Mt. Everything, only they won't mount CDs. Load-a-Drive will. Compulsory for the forgetful or the lazy. It lies to you (like Drive Setup when you're using it to mount Zips or Jazes) and tells you it couldn't 'initialise the driver' but then loads it anyway. Bottom line: works and works well.
• FWB CD ROM Toolkit: Commercial, FWB Software. Bit dated, even the current version (4.0x). Accelerates access to CDs by caching their directory contents. It doesn't even support my Yamaha 6416S or any newer drives. Haven't tried hacking it yet, but will.
• InTech CD-ROMSpeedTools: Commercial, InTech. Cheaper than FWB and orderable online for download (@ 1.3MB). Much better generic support for all types of CD ROM and CDR/Ws. Like CDRTK, also plays audio CDs.
• RD's Jam Hack: Freeware. Yes, this is (sorta) mine. Hacked a Yamaha driver so that it works with Adaptec's Jam. It'll work with the Yamaha 8424S and the 6416S. If you're handy with ResEdit, you can probably figure out how to hack it yourself for another CDR. Works fine for me. No warranties. You can download it from my Public folder on iDisk if you're using OS 9.0 (my handle is pb5300). If not, I'll put it up for download shortly.
• Mt Everything will tell you if your PB can see the CDR or not. v.1.1 works on everything from the PowerBook 100 up. v.1.5 requires a 68020 or later.
• SCSI Probe does much the same thing but will also tell you whether your SCSI bus is terminated. *Don't* get the very latest version; it's for PCI Macs; use v.3.5 or 5.1.

What you need:

 

1. PowerBook fitting the above description
2. SCSI CD burner
3. HDI-30 SCSI cable-->Centronics 50M or DB25M (29 pin; see PowerBook SCSI for more info)
4. CD burning software
5. Blank CDR/CDRW media

I generally advise a newer burner (4x, 6x 8x etc) as you can keep it for when you upgrade your system. More importantly, newer burners have a much bigger RAM buffer, which's what your 500/190/5300/1400 needs. For example, the Panasonic 8x4 SCSI, which I still see (April 2000) new in the shops in Australia, has only a 1MB buffer. By contrast, the Yamaha 6416S and Panasonic 20x8 have 2MB. The newer Yamaha 8424S has 4MB and some newer Acer and HP models have 8MB. I haven't tested newer ones, but it may be possible to burn at higher speeds with stacks of buffer room. Though I'm not sure why you'd want to combine a high-end burner with a low-end PowerBook. But you might need to. However...

Optiona stuff:

1. Ginormous (1.0GB minimum say) internal hard disk. Partition it so it holds your system and (say) a 750MB blank partition for CD mastering
2. OK, so 1.0GB's not ginormous. A ginormous external SCSI drive is a better option. A Jaz, Orb or SyJet will also do the job. Don'tuse a Zip; it's too damn slow. If you've got a Zip, use it to store the files you want to back up later; transfer them to your burning partition on a hard disk when you've accummulated 650MB worth.
3. An extra SCSI CD ROM drive (any speed will do)
4. A terminator (possibly)

OK. So you've got the gear. Now what?

 

 
 
 

A fresh reboot helps. Make sure you turn off all extensions except necessary ones. Keep your CD driver, ISO/Foreign File Access and Toast Reader if you're using Toast or Jam. Better still, make a custom set of extensions with the Extensions Manager and call it 'CD Burning' or something. Make sure you turn off VM or RAMDoubler!!

But leave SpeedDoubler on!!

1. Put your data onto your master partition
2. Launch your CD burning application
3. Ensure your burn speed is set for 1x or 2x only (important)
4. Set the application to burn Mac volume, hybrid (Mac/PC) or audio CD (or whatever it is you're burning)
5. Do a simulation run if you want to make sure everything's OK.
6. Burn your CD.

See? Wasn't so hard was it?

If you're getting 'buffer underruns', you're cheating and you greedily set the write speed to 4x, didn't you? Put it back to 1x or 2x again and find a good book to read for 30 minutes or so.

The bottom line is to ensure you've configured your hardware and software correctly. If you're new to CD burning, read the manual (RTFM!;-). If you're a Toast/Jam veteran, the setup should be pretty quick and easy. As I say, if you're serious about burning 30 (or more) CDs per month, get that Quadra 605/650/800 or PM6100. But if you need to burn at someone's office, or need solid backups daily or weekly of your work, your PowerBook could just do the job you want it to, without lashing out on a brand new model.

And, let's face it, it beats feeding in floppies while you backup using DiskFit Direct ;-)

Good burning. Oh. Gotta go. Toast's ready.

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