[Leica] re: Very OT, Mac/PC

[Godfrey DiGiorgi <ramarren@bayarea.net>]

There's a significant difference between Mac OS and Windows/DOS native
volume formats. Mac OS' file system uses a set of plug-ins to allow it to
read both DOS and ISO-9660 volume formats as well as its own. I don't know
of any software on the Windows/DOS side that allows Windows to read
Mac OS native volume formats. Tina's comment that her driver can produce
both Mac OS and Windows format CDs is interesting ... is the Adaptec
software running on Mac OS or Windows? I know I can can use Adaptec Toast
to create both Mac OS and Windows/DOS volume format from a Mac OS
computer, but I have no Win box to experiment with in the other direction. 

You can create a cross-platform compatible volume format by creating an
ISO-9660 format volume. This is readable on virtually all computers now,
but you lose the icons and desktop formatting options of Mac OS and
Windows when you create ISO-9660 volumes.

File formats are another thing: most graphics formats are readable on
either platform easily. Even the "Mac TIFF" vs "PC TIFF" issue is handled
sensibly by Photoshop (difference is the byte ordering, Mac OS and Windows
use reverse byte ordering conventions). JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, etc are all
readable on either. 

Godfrey

>I may be really off base here, so forgive me in advance...I
>believe that most of the CDs can be read by either Mac or PC..the
>question isn't the CD, it's the file you put on the CD...If, for
>instance, you're using TIF files, they have to be Mac format TIF
>files.....