3 ms·
You're lucky it's standardized at all. Before the ISO specification each and every CD-ROM released had its own format, drivers, and headaches.
by astrodust 3y ago
You're lucky it's standardized at all. Before the ISO specification each and every CD-ROM released had its own format, drivers, and headaches.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yellowapple 3y agoHow many people would've owned CD-ROM drives between 1984 (when CD-ROMs first hit the market) and 1988 (when ISO 9660 was finalized), though? The bigger pain point for me was around booting from CDs; even though El Torito was around by the time I was potty trained, there were still plenty of PCs out there from before - and it's those PCs on which I cut my teeth as a kid :)
- catiopatio 3y agoI don’t recall that being the case, but my memory could be faulty. As I recall, the High Sierra Format - which served as the basis for ISO 9660 — was widely used prior to ISO 9660’s standardization and adoption.
- astrodust 3y agoWidely, but not exclusively used. Some big vendors at the time that made things like library indexes and legal references used their own completely wacky in-house formats that required lots of fiddling with device drivers. They'd often only work with a handful of CD-ROM devices as well, meaning you're stuck with your $2000 single-speed top-loading NEC drive for eternity. High Sierra won out, it was the logocal winner, and there was, thankfully, no standards war like with HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray.