Apple //gs RamFAST/SCSI with CD-ROM troubles

[Vintage Computer Festival]

I have a sweet Apple //gs set-up that has a RamFAST/SCSI controller
inside.  It works great with SCSI hard drives, no so great with CD-ROM
drive.

The CD-ROM drive I'm using is an AppleCD 300 which according to the Apple
//gs CD-ROM FAQ is one of the more compatible CD-ROM drives for the //gs.

Apple //gs CD-ROM FAQ:

http://www.gno.org/pub/apple2/doc/FAQs/OLD.FAQs/cdrom.19980214

At any rate, a lot of different drives are supposed to work with the
RamFAST/SCSI card.  I believe my biggest problem is that the ROMs on the
board are Version 1, whereas the FAQ says the "best" is Version 3.01, on a
Revision D board (mine's Revision C).  The 3.01 ROMs can run "any" CD-ROM
drive "without any extra drivers required".

I can get the CD-ROM drive to coexist with an external HD just fine.  The
first problem is I don't have an Apple //gs specific CD, so I'm trying out
various older Mac CDs.  If I boot into the RamFAST ROM utilities, I can
see the CD-ROM drive.  I can get information about it.  I can even get it
to see the partition(s) on the CD-ROM.  I can save the configuration and
boot into GS/OS.  But when GS/OS starts finding all the drives, it
complains that the CD-ROM is foreign and wants to initialize it.  I have
the HS.FST driver installed, which should give GS/OS the ability to mount
ISO 9660/High Sierra and Mac HFS CD-ROMs, but it won't.  I've tried discs
in the 1992-1994 timeframe with no success.

One possible "clue" is that when I first mount the CD-ROM drive and the
RamFAST card doesn't have it in its configuration yet, it complains that
the CD-ROM is uninitialized.  According to the manual, this could mean
that the CD or the drive is not reporting that it uses 512 byte blocks.
Something like that.  But I can "format" the CD-ROM, which really just
allows the SCSI card to see the CD-ROM (finds its partitions, label, etc.)
and sorta mounts it.  But GS/OS doesn't like it.

Has anyone played around with CD-ROM drives on the Apple //gs at any
length?

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

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