diff --git a/doc/libcdio.texi b/doc/libcdio.texi index 18e088aa..6ac97c95 100644 --- a/doc/libcdio.texi +++ b/doc/libcdio.texi @@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ development.'' @titlepage @title GNU libcdio library -@subtitle $Id: libcdio.texi,v 1.20 2004/04/03 12:24:45 rocky Exp $ +@subtitle $Id: libcdio.texi,v 1.21 2004/04/25 17:19:50 rocky Exp $ @author Rocky Bernstein et al. @page @@ -143,7 +143,8 @@ If around the year 2002 you were to look at the code for a number of open-source CD or media players that work on several platforms such as vlc, MPlayer, xine, or xmms to name but a few, you'd find the code to read a CD sprinked with conditional compilation for this or that -platform. +platform. That is there was OS-independent programmer library for CD +reading and control even though the technology was over 10 years old! One CD player, @kbd{xmcd} by Ti Kan, was I think a bit better than most in that it tried to @emph{encapsulate} the kinds of CD control @@ -180,6 +181,15 @@ hardware. It is a great idea and no doubt something similar exists on other platforms. However this "standard" lacked adoption on OS's other than GNU/Linux. +Finally at the hardware level where a similar chaos exists (existed?), +there is the SCSI MMC (multimedia commands). This attempts to provide +a uniform command set for CD devices sort of like PostScript does for +printer commands. But in contrast to PostScript, there is no uniform +PostScript command language that programmers can write to. Instead +each OS has its own ``standard API.'' For example Adaptec's ASPI or +the Microsoft's DeviceIoControl on Microsoft Windows, or IOKit for +Apple's OS/X. + @node Purpose @chapter What is in this package (and what's not)