Need help with a CD upload - Macintosh Garden

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2017, January 28 - 11:08am

ameath

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Joined: 2013 Jan 21

Need help with a CD upload

I have a rare copy of the Manhole (1988 CD-ROM edition) which I was able to image with some difficulty in Mac OS X. The resulting file is a .IMG HFS formatted image. It will not mount in Mac OS X due to the old file format, but it does mount properly in Sheepshaver and Basilisk II. If I compress the .IMG file into .SIT using DropStuff will that be sufficient to comply with the upload requirements?

I also want to include a .DSK image which is pre-loaded with System 7.1 and the game files copied across from the CD image. It is is basically a "ready to play" disk image for use with Mini vMac which will launch the game automatically when mounted as disk 1. If I put this .DSK image in a ZIP file will that be permitted for upload as well? I would like to offer it as a convenience because I find the game runs best in Mini vMac but that emulator does not have support for actual CD images in .IMG format.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

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2017, January 28 - 12:40pm

24bit

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Joined: 2010 Nov 19

Both your plans sound good and well thought.
Its kind of rare people asking decent questions here instead of posting half working things.
As you tried both your hard files, they will be a worthy addition to the Garden.

If you should have other Mac CDs to preserve, I would like to recommend IMGBurn for Windows.
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/imgburn-250
If you don´t own a Windows rig, VirtualBox or other virtualisation software, running W2k or better, will do too.
Its kind of odd to use Windows to preserve Mac Software, but IMGBurn is the best solution for anything above OSX 10.5, never had a coaster using it.

2017, February 4 - 4:10pm

ameath

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Joined: 2013 Jan 21

Your suggestion to use IMGBurn was very helpful, as it allowed me to learn a few things about this CD release of which I was not previously aware.

The disc is definitely mixed mode, with a data track of approximately 60MB and 16 audio tracks. The interesting thing is, I realized that the entire audio soundtrack to this game has been re-sampled in 8-bit 22kHz and then inserted into the Hypercard stacks from which the game runs. I confirmed this by opening some of the stacks in ResEdit and playing back various parts of the soundtrack.

This makes perfect sense now, as early Macs would not have been able to play back 16-bit sound directly (as far as I am aware) and hence the easiest way to program the game would have been to get all the music and voice samples directly into the Hypercard stacks. It also explains why I noticed some small stutters or gaps when the music and sounds playback within the game, as the sound files that make up the score are split into many smaller files within the stacks. Perhaps it was a limitation of Hypercard.

Anyway, the end result is that I will arrange to upload a BIN/CUE of the the entire disc for those that wish to burn their own perfect copy of the original, but the audio tracks are only useful to play back in a CD/audio player. The only file needed for the game to run is an image of the data partition, which could just be ripped to an IMG or ISO file.

I will also provide the above mentioned DSK file for those that wish to run the game in Mini vMac, where I have just copied across the files from the data track, and pre-installed Hypercard and System 7.1

2017, February 4 - 7:36pm

24bit

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Joined: 2010 Nov 19

Thanks for your well done work!
I´ll give the game a go one of these days. Good to know the original CD is preserved.

2017, February 5 - 2:58am

semvalidade2006

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Joined: 2017 Jan 21

The best approach to create an CD/DVD image is to use [dd] to generate an .ISO file.
1. Run [terminal]
2. Load your CD/DVD into the CD/DVD tray. Wait it to be mounted.
3. Run [mount] and check what is the /dev for your optical drive unit. For example, /dev/disk3s2 indicates that your optical unit is /dev/disk2
4. Run [sudo dd if=/dev/disk? of=~/Downloads/"complete CD/DVD description".iso] (the "?" should replaced the correct disk number. Wait until it is finished.
5. Run [chmod a -w ~/Downloads/"complete CD/DVD description".iso]. This is to avoid some bad behaviours from Mac OS X.
6. Eject your optical media
7. Using [Finder] double-click the .ISO file and confirm it is mounted.

2017, February 5 - 6:23am

(Reply to #5) #6

ameath

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Joined: 2013 Jan 21

Thanks for the suggestion. But for a mixed mode CD will that process also preserve the audio tracks that are separate to the data partition?

The reason I had to use IMGBurn in this case was because the data partition itself is HFS, which MacOS X will not even recognize and mount on the desktop. Inserting the CD only results in a disc called "Audio CD" showing up.

IMGBurn in Windows 10 showed me both partitions and ripped and verified both without issues. I could then access the data files with PowerISO and transfer them to a DSK image created in Sheepshaver but for use in Mini vMac.

Perhaps another way to do this would be to use an old Mac running MacOS 9 or earlier, and find an application that will rip the HFS data track to an IMG file or something similar (but perhaps without the audio tracks?).

BIN/CUE was chosen simply to preserve this disc for the archive. The best way to run this will depend on the user's hardware and software. For MacOS users with 10.7 and up I do not think there is a way to mount the entire CD (with the audio partition) due to current limitations of emulation software. If I recall correctly, Snow Leopard 10.6 was the last version where Sheepshaver could mount a physical CD, and even then I am only assuming that a mixed mode CD would have worked correctly?

I guess all this does not really matter for the Manhole because the CD audio tracks are not accessed directly in the game but were added for those that wanted to listen to the soundtrack in their CD players. However, for games like Descent I and II, I am not sure I will ever be able to see the Mac versions of those running properly in emulation.