HW: Nova Drive Boot

[Carl E. Anderson]

>        I myself am a Software Engineer who has just recently spent time
>        getting a Pinnacle Micro CD-Recorder working, so that my company
>        can start shipping our software on CD.  I have successfully burned
>        UNIX and Windows CDs, as well as a one-off copy of Myst.  ;^)
>        I am using a UNIX system.  I have already tried using a P90 PCI PC
>        to burn CD-Rs with *no* success; I conclude that I will have to buy
>        about $1500 worth of high-speed AV hard disk in order to do it
>        without error.  I have even purchased "Wave For Windows", which has
>        a (non-file-size-limited) ability to adjust, modify, and "clean-up"
>        a WAV file, once I have recorded an audio tape to hard disk.
>        All to no avail...  :-(
>        If you want to make your own music CD (the most difficult of all
>        CDs to burn), it may be easiest to do what the above guy did --
>        make one for yourself, and subsidize your cost by selling a few
>        copies.  Any additional insights on this subject are appreciated.

        Or find friends who work in multi-media orriented companies.
When my now quite effectively defunct band recorded our demo tape,
a couple of members worked in such a company and with some small effort
copied the DAT of the tape onto CDs (one for each band-member).  It's
not difficult if you have access to a CD-R machine with the
appropriate software, but it's the software that's the trick.

        Another thing to be aware of is the differing shelf-lives of
different types of CD-Rs.  CD-Rs use a dye as the medium to encode
their data, and this dyes comes in two types which can be effectively
indentified by color.  The most common dye is a greenish shade, and
unfortunately has the shortest life-span before the dye breaks down.
Keep it away from light and you might get five years out of it. It
_can_ degrade in as little as a year, but for all I know could go
much faster if left in direct sunlight ...
        The other type of dye is a yellowish-gold color and is
_much_ more resistant to the effects of light and time--perhaps
lasting as much as a century or longer.  Unfortunately, CD-Rs of
this type are much harder to find at this time.

Cheers,
Carl