Using A Cdrom Drive Under Ms-Dos - ICP GDT RS Series User Manual

thank Mr. Georg Schnurer and the c't magazine for allowing us to use this very helpful utility on
our system disks.
Example 1: The Microsoft EMM386.EXE Manager is used. The ICP driver GDTX000.EXE has
not been loaded from the CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE X=D000-D3FF X=E000-E1FF
Example 2: The Microsoft EMM386.EXE Manager is used. The ICP driver GDTX000.EXE has
been loaded from the CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE X=D000-D3FF
(Note: You may have to add the path for "EMM386.EXE". Other parameters may follow the
excluded areas).
D.5 Using a CDROM Drive under MS-DOS
CDROM drives (as well as tape streamers, WORM drives and most MOD drives, too) belong
to the category of the so-called Not Direct Access Devices. They cannot be installed with
ICPCON or FDISK and FORMAT and they are not directly supported by MS-DOS or Windows
- unlike, for example, hard disks and removable hard disks. To install and access these de-
vices, a special standard, the so-called ASPI Standard (Advanced SCSI programming Inter-
face), has been created. While the manufacturer of the controller (in this case ICP) has to
offer the ASPI Manager, the manufacturer of the SCSI device (CDROMs etc.) has to provide
an ASPI Module (note: there are some companies which have specialized in the develop-
ment of ASPI modules, for example Corel Corp. with its product corelSCSI; the ICP Con-
troller is certified by Corel). Both units, the SCSI controller and the SCSI device,
communicate through this ASPI interface. It is not a hardware interface (like, for example,
Centronics, SCSI or RS232), but a pure software interface.
The following illustration explains this interface:
CDROM (Hardware: SCSI CDROM drive)
MS-DOS, Windows
ICP Controller (Hardware: SCSI Controller)
With the following two examples we demonstrate how to install a CDROM drive for use with
the ICP Controller under MS-DOS and Windows. The installation differs slightly, depending
on whether you use the corelSCSI software or the ASW software. Regardless of which soft-
ware you choose to use, the ASPI manager of the ICP Controller (located on the GDT System
Disk - DOS) has to be loaded from the CONFIG.SYS file. The objective of both installations
is to make the CDROM drive accessible as a drive (for example drive E) under MS-DOS or
Windows, and to be able to access this drive just as if it were a (write-protected) floppy disk
in drive A or B.
At this point we presume that the CDROM drive has been properly connected to the ICP
Controller. This includes that the SCSI-ID and the SCSI bus terminators are set in accor-
dance with the settings of the already existing SCSI devices (i. e., the SCSI-ID chosen for the
CDROM drive is not occupied by another device; resistor terminators are located only at the
two ends of the SCSI bus).
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ASPI Module
(Software: driver for CDROM)
ICP ASPI Manager (GDTASPI.EXE)
(Software: ASPI Manager for the ICP
Controller)