Another bit from 'The Lab': Burning CD / DVD with 9556

Hi !

The story is not just sensational, but may act as a warning.
Or challenge. Whatever.

I'd tried to find out if a system as low as a 9556-0BA (486SLC2) could act as a CD or even DVD burner station in e.g. a networked environment. Given that "time" is not an issue. I think it is not surprising, that everything takes a lot time on a 56.
But can it be done ? What is needed ?

A 9556 in first place.
Mine is the -0BA with the 486SLC2, no additional FPU and the full 16MB RAM possible with that machine. It has a network card (short 16/4 Auto-TR) and accidentially happens to have an AHA-1640 SCSI plus the M-ACPA, but I don't use them.
The internal HD is an IBM DCAS-2.16GB USCSI (50-pin) at ID-6 and the CD-ROM was originally an old-fashion caddy-loaded Plextor at ID-5.
Both are attached to the internal onboard IBM (Spock) SCSI controller.

I threw out the Plextor and installed a TSST (Toshiba Samsung Storage Tech.) Writemaster SH-S182 IDE DVD-CD burner with the famous Acard IDE-to-SCSI converter (= Yamaha V769970). The drive-adapter combo is even shorter than the old Plextor. Along with the siderails taken from the Plextor and the required Y DC-cable adapter all fits nicely into the 56 case.

The 9556 runs under Windows 95.
Auigh ! I know. "If you had taken Linux ..." I had, but I didn't want that in this stage. The machine was already running for years with W95, why tossing everything ?

The burner software is my favourite "Deep Burner 1.8.0.224" from Astonsoft, which can be downloaded at e.g. FileHippo or other places on the net. No extra bits during installation - just a standard run-thru.
However: it will not run on an old, unmodified W95. The reason is a different set of object controls introduced later (with W98 IIRC).
Same problem as with e.g. Nero 5.5.
You need to download and run the 50comupd.exe (499KB) which installs the latest controls. After that DeepBurner will work. (I think.)

As said: time should not be an issue.
Burning 200 MB worth of data over the network may take more than an hour on a CD-RW media. Thanks to the SmartBurn Buffer underrun protection supported by both, drive and software, you can do even that and it would not matter.

I haven't tried to burn a data-DVD yet, a CD-RW is still "on the run" and hasn't finished, but it looks fine so far. The trouble may start if the burning software hasn't got enough room locally to store the image file. I might try putting that on the network drive as well ... even though W95 "sees" only 2GB free space on it. That might be a limiting factor. I don't know and will report back later. I also will try to get Nero 5.5. running, which allowes to disable the local buffer function, which DeepBurner seems to maintain. I also haven't tried to burn ISO-files from a network drive (like flash update CDs for various systems) and if that goes faster than real data burning filewise.
More on that topic when enough empirical data is available.

--
Very friendly greetings from Peter in Germany
http://members.aol.com/mcapage0/mcaindex.htm

*** Reply to: peterwendt@xxxxxxx only ! ***
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