Not so long ago, I picked up a Sony MDH-10, which is a combination
portable MiniDisc audio and MD-Data SCSI-2 drive. It's reported like this by
NetBSD/macppc:

mesh0 at obio ...
<snip>
scsibus0 target 6 lun 0: <SONY, MDH-10, 1.12> SCSI2 16/unknown removable not
configured.

    It wouldn't be so bad if the MacOS drivers from Sony worked decently,
but they appear to be written for System 7 on 68k, probably not SCSI Manager
4.3 compliant, doesn't support Hybrid MD's, etc. etc. In other words, the
driver is tyrannical with the SCSI chain, it's windows don't draw correctly
and it slows the machine down significantly. Even when just playing an
audio-MD, when all it has to do is get what track the drive is on and how
many frames into the track it's at. The activity light is on solid when
there is any driver access other than checking the battery status, and
seeing if there is a disk in the drive. Some MacOS utilities seem to think
that this is a Streaming tape drive, and others a MO drive (which it really
is). Unless there is a liaison to Sony here who could get specs on the
drive, MD-FS and MD-Data structure or source, I doubt I would be able to get
anything from Sony (or if I could, it would be in Japanese and I couldn't
read it). I doubt Sharp, Yamaha, or Roland would cough up any docs either.
Any thoughts?



Chris

-- 

Atlantis: {13} fortune
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
        I muck with indices and structs all day
And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
        Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay