** 1 page PD/Shareware review / 721 words **

Spin! v0.34

Mario Becroft takes Spin! for a spin...

** SPIN_DIR.GIF here **
** caption **
Here's a Thing window displaying the contents of an Audio CD. Simply double-click on a "program" to play the desired audio track - no other software is required
** /caption **

These days practically every computer user has a CD-ROM drive, and CD-ROM is more relevant to the Atari than ever. Not only are there more Atari specific CD-ROMs becoming available, but the Atari can also take advantage of many "PC" CDs.

A SCSI CD-ROM drive can be connected to any newer Atari machine with built-in SCSI by simply plugging it in. Older machines will require a ACSI to SCSI adapter such as the Link 97. But the other important requirement is driver software, without which the drive is useless. And this is where Spin! comes in.

MetaDOS, the software previously used to access CD-ROM drives, adds functionality to the operating system to enable alternative storage media other than hard and floppy disk drives to be used with TOS. It does this through the use of BOS and DOS drivers. The BOS drivers provide the lower level access to the actual hardware, while the DOS drivers provide the high-level interface between the filesystem on the storage media and the application software. Various filesystems can easily be used the same physical storage hardware, such as a hard disk drive, and that is why the two different drivers are necessary.

The release of MiNT and its introduction of loadable filesystems rendered the MetaDOS DOS drivers irrelevant. Under MiNT (and now MagiC) any filesystem can be supported using a loadable filesystem driver, so MetaDOS is no longer required.

Spin! is supplied as a MiNT or MagiC loadable filesystem, but it still uses MetaDOS for the lower level access via a BOS driver. This means all existing CD-ROM hardware supported by MetaDOS remains accessible with Spin! using the original BOS drivers but the DOS drivers are no longer necessary - these are what Spin! replaces.

Like all the current CD-ROM drivers, Spin! lets a CD-ROM be assigned to a new drive letter and the CD can then be accessed like another media. Unlike other drivers, Spin! supports multiple CD-ROM filesystems, including:

** UL **
* ISO9660 Level 1
* ISO9660 with longer names
* ISO9660 with Rockridge extensions
* ISO9660 with Apple-extensions
* ISO9600/Joliet
* Macintosh-HFS
* Audio-CD
** /UL **

This means so-called long and case-sensitive filenames are preserved - which is particularly handy when accessing CD-ROMs created on Windows 95. Many Spin! users will also benefit from the Macintosh HFS CD-ROM support, which allows Macintosh CDs to be accessed on the Atari. Many other CD-ROM drivers fail to read multi-session CD-ROMs in my experience, but Spin! handles them without problems.

Audio CD support has also been improved. If an audio CD is inserted and the user tries to access it like a CD-ROM, rather than receiving an error message, he will find on the CD a series of programs, one per track. Double clicking on a program plays the chosen audio track - no other software or player is necessary! With CD-ROM drives that support the feature, audio tracks also show up as wave (WAV) files which can be copied to the hard drive by a simple Drag&Drop operation on the desktop. Of course CD player programs will also still work as normal.

Aside from those outstanding features, Spin! functions like any other CD-ROM driver. Spin! is available in two versions to suit either MiNT or MagiC, and installation under MiNT is as simple as copying SPIN.XFS to the the MINT folder. If MetaDOS is not already installed it must also be copied to the AUTO folder, and the CONFIG.SYS file has to be edited to reflect the correct configuration. A compact version of MetaDOS, called MetaXBS is supplied with Spin! and this contains all the features needed to use Spin!, with the other files removed. Although this article is based on the MiNT version of Spin!, the MagiC version functions in much the same way.

** product boxout **
Spin!!

Author
Julian F. Reschke
Email: jr@ms.maus.de
http://www.muenster.de/~reschke/
ftp://ftp.uni-muenster.de/pub/atari/Utilities/spin034.tos

Status
Freeware

Requires
CD-ROM, any Atari, MiNT or MagiC

Pros
Supports wide range of CD filesystems including ones with long filenames, easy to access audio CDs, free

Cons
Not as easy to install as commercial alternatives

Rating
95%
** /product boxout **