On 30. Nov 2004, at 04:47, Thomas N. Meek wrote:
Is it possible to burn CDs in Mac format on a PC?
I don't know whether this is possible. Since Macs can burn PC discs, it would seem logical that PCs could burn Mac discs, but I don't use PCs so I can't say for sure.
However, it should be possible to read a PC CD on a Mac. On the PC you need to burn the disk in ISO 9660 format (I believe that's the standard way to burn PC discs) and on the Mac you need to have software that can read that kind of disc. Apple's CD driver can do this if the ISO 9660 File Access or High Sierra File Access extensions are present along with the Foreign File Access extension.
There is a whole lot more information than you ever wanted to know about ISO 9660 and High Sierra in this old MacTech article:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_03/high_sierra.html
The article says that even the Apple II GS supports ISO 9660, so I would hope that even the earliest Macs with CD support would work with it.
The one thing to watch out for is that PCs don't deal well with resource forks and file type and creator codes, which are essential to many types of Macintosh files, including any application. The MacTech article talks about extensions to the ISO 9660 format made by Apple to accomodate these Mac-specific features, and they are used by Mac CD burning programs like Toast, but I don't know how a PC CD burning program would be able to use them, since the PC operating systems themselves can't represent the information properly.
Your best bet will be to burn only files that have been compressed by a Macintosh. If you download a Mac game using a PC, and it comes in .sit or .hqx or .cpt or .img or some other compressed format, burn that compressed file to the CD, and only decompress it once you put the CD into the Mac. That'll ensure that the resource fork and file type and creator codes are not lost. Of course, if you just want to get a PC file (like a text file, a Word file, an image, or a sound) over to a Mac then those can just be burned to the CD without any special considerations, since these files don't use resource forks anyway, and type and creator codes are not necessary because their purpose is clear from the three-character extension on the filename.
Note that compressed .sea files (self-extracting archives) are not necessarily covered by this recommendation, because .sea files are actually application programs. I know there are some compression programs that construct a .sea file by putting the compressed data in the data fork, like they do for non-.sea files, and then stuff the application code in the resource fork, which means that if the resource fork gets lost, you still end up with a valid compressed file and can decompress it, provided you have the decompression program. For example, I believe StuffIt and Compact Pro create their .sea files that way. But I can't guarantee that DiskDoubler or other compression programs work that way. The best idea is to avoid .sea files if possible.
.smi files (self-mounting images) are also applications, so the same cautions apply. But .smi files probably don't work on System 6 anyway.
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