Peripherals

CD Burner

A CD-ROM burner, also called CD recordable (CDR), creates CDs. My own burner is a Yamaha CDR400t 8X read (8X 150KBPS) and 4X write. This unit also works as a CD-ROM and CD audio player, and with appropriate mastering software can burn CDs of any sort including Mac, PC, Unix, audio CD, computer plus audio CD, CDI (interactive CD for game consoles), CD+G (audio with graphics such as a music single with lyrics), and video CD (CDV).

One important point I discovered: just because either a PC or Mac CD can be recorded with the same machine does not mean that the information on the CD is going to be automatically readable by that platform. The programming still has to be compatible with the resident operating system of those machines. This cross-platform issue furthered my resolve to use HTML for developing Odysseus, She, even if my final product was to be resident on a CD-ROM. Actually, a number of other media producers have done the same, such as the Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible [Ros97], the books produced by O'Reilly publishing, and Encyclopedia Britannica [Bri99].