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> CD-ROM media Wow, I just learned that I can still buy a pack of new CD-RW discs. This is an almost 30 year old format that is still published for! Long live

> CD-ROM media Wow, I just learned that I can still buy a pack of new CD-RW discs. This is an almost 30 year old format that is still published for! Long live ATAPI! Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?

bilegeek 2mo ago
> Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? New x64 systems? Probably not. But since it still supports x86 and a whole slew of other architectures[1] still that don't always, it probably wouldn't make sense to stop. [1]https://www.netbsd.org/ports/ https://www.netbsd.org/ports/
- bpye 2mo ago
  NetBSD supposedly supports 486, I don't think you're going to have much luck with USB there.
  - AAAAaccountAAAA 2mo ago
    Some higher-end 486 boards[1] were made with PCI slots, so retrofitting them with an USB controller shouldn't be difficult? You'll still need a boot floppy to actually boot from an USB drive, I think? 1. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3 https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3
    - prmoustache 2mo ago
      It is still easier to find cdr than floppies anyway. I can still find some in brick and mortar supermarkets. Still useful when you have an old car and want to keep the original audio system.
  - accrual 2mo ago
    There are some ISA USB cards with custom drivers to support them and present them as normal drives under MS-DOS. Never tried it myself, but they exist and seem to work! Other commenter is correct, there are some late 486 boards with PCI support that would allow USB 1.0 or even 2.0 cards to be installed and used. Probably slow, but should work. On the topic of modernizing a 486-class machine, there also exist a few with native PS/2 mouse support, and certain Matrox PCI cards have digital out, so it'd be possible to build a 486-class machine with USB 1.1, DVI/HDMI, and PS/2. Since some Logitech wireless mice support PS/2, one could connect a 486 rig to a crisp digital LCD, use a wireless mouse, and plug in USB flash drives, sound, 10/100 network, NT 4.0, etc. -- all supported. Can make a fairly "modern" machine out of a pre-Pentium chip.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
    - hakfoo 2mo ago
      I did a lot of work on a custom option ROM for the ISA USB card type you mention. It exposes an INT 13h interface, so systems that access discs through the BIOS will work (DOS, probably CP/M-86 or ELKS, Minix might require you to specify BIOS disc access). More sophisticated operating systems that directly poke the IDE registers are not going to find what they're looking for.
      - PerditionC 2mo ago
        do you have any more info on this posted anywhere? what ISA USB card? Thanks.
        hakfoo 2mo ago
        There's a many, many post thread here https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/isa-usb-board.76978/ https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/isa-usb-board.7697... where a lot of the discussion took place, both my efforts and some other devs working on a DOS-based driver. https://gitlab.com/hakfoo1/ch37x-bios https://gitlab.com/hakfoo1/ch37x-bios is the actual code. Post 394 shows a picture of the card I used, which at the time was sold in like 500 AliExpress storefronts for about USD25. The magic word is "CH375" or "CH376" (two chips, overlapping functionality, different enough to be annoying to support in software) As mentioned in the thread, it tends to fit a weird niche. For 8086/8088 machines, the other main option is XT-IDE cards, which are like $40+ and they're sort of finicky with some drives. For a 286+, usually installing a standard IDE drive (or a more modern CF->IDE or SD->IDE adapter) is the easy mode with wide software support.
bitwize 2mo ago
Blit the iso to a usb stick and boot it. If your PC is recent (made in the past 15-20 years or so), it'll understand it just fine.
- imoverclocked 2mo ago
  > If you are using flash-based media (e.g. a USB drive), please use the .img files rather than the .iso images. I have done that in the past but there are already .img files specifically for USB. Seems redundant.
  - Narishma 2mo ago
    Both are needed for different use cases. That they overlap for some use cases doesn't make them redundant.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
jmclnx 2mo ago
>Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? Old Systems. I have one such system that will is in line to move to 11.0 from 9.3. To do that I will boot from CDROM. It does not have any USB ports. NetBSD is probably the only UN*X Type OS that can run on many of these 32 bit systems. Plus the NetBSD team is doing their best to support these old systems. That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :)
- imoverclocked 2mo ago
  > That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :) Seems like a tradeoff with power though. Even emulating hardware from that era is more power efficient than actually running it. Of course, if you have custom ISA cards or something then you are likely stuck :)
  - sellmesoap 2mo ago
    I don't know about the progression of PSU efficiency, but 32bit desktops were rocking 250-400w PSUs and modern desktops would be hard to find one less then 650w so sure maybe we're more efficient for the amount of compute/W but running flat out will still hit your pocketbook harder on a modern system.
    - cosmic_cheese 2mo ago
      I’m in favor of repurposing old machines, but for a lot of the use cases they serve would be more than adequately filled by those little mobile CPU mini-PCs and Mac Mini’s which can go as low as 2-15W and top out somewhere around 60-110W.
thisislife2 2mo ago
I am guessing, but many of us still use CDs / DVDs (/BluRays?) to make backups. It's cheap. Lasts long.
- sellmesoap 2mo ago
  Write once has some security benefits as well!
- alt227 2mo ago
  > Lasts long My CD backups lasted about 10-12 years before the silver started peeling off the discs :(
  - thisislife2 2mo ago
    Yeah, learnt the hard way to have backups in multiple medias and that you have to refresh / re-copy your backups every 4-5 years. Wish we had consumer tape drives so that it could be once every 10 years or so.
Retr0id 2mo ago
One thing ISOs are useful for is installation under a hypervisor, or BMC. You can usually do the exact same thing with USB images, but a lot of the UI/workflows are oriented around .iso files.
cosmic_cheese 2mo ago
Flash storage can’t sit on the shelf without bitrot as long as CD-R and DVD-R can, even though writable optical media itself isn’t the best for durability. CD-RW/DVD+RW on the other hand are also even worse than flash in that regard and decay very quickly in my experience.
Narishma 2mo ago
NetBSD even supports installing from floppies on old systems if you don´t have a CD-ROM drive.
saghm 2mo ago
> Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? I mean, you could also ask "why use NetBSD when Linux or even Windows is much more ubiquitous and much easier to install?", but I feel like that would be missing the point. Once you're off the beaten path, you have to update your priors a bit about how likely it is to need to support something that isn't as common.
yjftsjthsd-h 2mo ago
> Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? NetBSD literally maintains support for VAX. Your mental model of expected hardware isn't exactly wrong in the general case, but it's also not exactly applicable here.
chungy 2mo ago
> Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. You can make ISO images that boot fine from both CD and USB sticks, when written to either format. Why "Fix" something that ain't broke?

bilegeek 2mo ago

> Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? New x64 systems? Probably not. But since it still supports x86 and a whole slew of other architectures[1] still that don't always, it probably wouldn't make sense to stop. [1]https://www.netbsd.org/ports/ https://www.netbsd.org/ports/

bpye 2mo ago
NetBSD supposedly supports 486, I don't think you're going to have much luck with USB there.
- AAAAaccountAAAA 2mo ago
  Some higher-end 486 boards[1] were made with PCI slots, so retrofitting them with an USB controller shouldn't be difficult? You'll still need a boot floppy to actually boot from an USB drive, I think? 1. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3 https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3
  - prmoustache 2mo ago
    It is still easier to find cdr than floppies anyway. I can still find some in brick and mortar supermarkets. Still useful when you have an old car and want to keep the original audio system.
- accrual 2mo ago
  There are some ISA USB cards with custom drivers to support them and present them as normal drives under MS-DOS. Never tried it myself, but they exist and seem to work! Other commenter is correct, there are some late 486 boards with PCI support that would allow USB 1.0 or even 2.0 cards to be installed and used. Probably slow, but should work. On the topic of modernizing a 486-class machine, there also exist a few with native PS/2 mouse support, and certain Matrox PCI cards have digital out, so it'd be possible to build a 486-class machine with USB 1.1, DVI/HDMI, and PS/2. Since some Logitech wireless mice support PS/2, one could connect a 486 rig to a crisp digital LCD, use a wireless mouse, and plug in USB flash drives, sound, 10/100 network, NT 4.0, etc. -- all supported. Can make a fairly "modern" machine out of a pre-Pentium chip.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - hakfoo 2mo ago
    I did a lot of work on a custom option ROM for the ISA USB card type you mention. It exposes an INT 13h interface, so systems that access discs through the BIOS will work (DOS, probably CP/M-86 or ELKS, Minix might require you to specify BIOS disc access). More sophisticated operating systems that directly poke the IDE registers are not going to find what they're looking for.
    - PerditionC 2mo ago
      do you have any more info on this posted anywhere? what ISA USB card? Thanks.
      - hakfoo 2mo ago
        There's a many, many post thread here https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/isa-usb-board.76978/ https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/isa-usb-board.7697... where a lot of the discussion took place, both my efforts and some other devs working on a DOS-based driver. https://gitlab.com/hakfoo1/ch37x-bios https://gitlab.com/hakfoo1/ch37x-bios is the actual code. Post 394 shows a picture of the card I used, which at the time was sold in like 500 AliExpress storefronts for about USD25. The magic word is "CH375" or "CH376" (two chips, overlapping functionality, different enough to be annoying to support in software) As mentioned in the thread, it tends to fit a weird niche. For 8086/8088 machines, the other main option is XT-IDE cards, which are like $40+ and they're sort of finicky with some drives. For a 286+, usually installing a standard IDE drive (or a more modern CF->IDE or SD->IDE adapter) is the easy mode with wide software support.

bitwize 2mo ago

Blit the iso to a usb stick and boot it. If your PC is recent (made in the past 15-20 years or so), it'll understand it just fine.

imoverclocked 2mo ago
> If you are using flash-based media (e.g. a USB drive), please use the .img files rather than the .iso images. I have done that in the past but there are already .img files specifically for USB. Seems redundant.
- Narishma 2mo ago
  Both are needed for different use cases. That they overlap for some use cases doesn't make them redundant.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

jmclnx 2mo ago

>Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? Old Systems. I have one such system that will is in line to move to 11.0 from 9.3. To do that I will boot from CDROM. It does not have any USB ports. NetBSD is probably the only UN*X Type OS that can run on many of these 32 bit systems. Plus the NetBSD team is doing their best to support these old systems. That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :)

imoverclocked 2mo ago
> That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :) Seems like a tradeoff with power though. Even emulating hardware from that era is more power efficient than actually running it. Of course, if you have custom ISA cards or something then you are likely stuck :)
- sellmesoap 2mo ago
  I don't know about the progression of PSU efficiency, but 32bit desktops were rocking 250-400w PSUs and modern desktops would be hard to find one less then 650w so sure maybe we're more efficient for the amount of compute/W but running flat out will still hit your pocketbook harder on a modern system.
  - cosmic_cheese 2mo ago
    I’m in favor of repurposing old machines, but for a lot of the use cases they serve would be more than adequately filled by those little mobile CPU mini-PCs and Mac Mini’s which can go as low as 2-15W and top out somewhere around 60-110W.

thisislife2 2mo ago

I am guessing, but many of us still use CDs / DVDs (/BluRays?) to make backups. It's cheap. Lasts long.

sellmesoap 2mo ago
Write once has some security benefits as well!
alt227 2mo ago
> Lasts long My CD backups lasted about 10-12 years before the silver started peeling off the discs :(
- thisislife2 2mo ago
  Yeah, learnt the hard way to have backups in multiple medias and that you have to refresh / re-copy your backups every 4-5 years. Wish we had consumer tape drives so that it could be once every 10 years or so.

Retr0id 2mo ago

One thing ISOs are useful for is installation under a hypervisor, or BMC. You can usually do the exact same thing with USB images, but a lot of the UI/workflows are oriented around .iso files.

cosmic_cheese 2mo ago

Flash storage can’t sit on the shelf without bitrot as long as CD-R and DVD-R can, even though writable optical media itself isn’t the best for durability. CD-RW/DVD+RW on the other hand are also even worse than flash in that regard and decay very quickly in my experience.

Narishma 2mo ago

NetBSD even supports installing from floppies on old systems if you don´t have a CD-ROM drive.

saghm 2mo ago

> Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? I mean, you could also ask "why use NetBSD when Linux or even Windows is much more ubiquitous and much easier to install?", but I feel like that would be missing the point. Once you're off the beaten path, you have to update your priors a bit about how likely it is to need to support something that isn't as common.

yjftsjthsd-h 2mo ago

> Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? NetBSD literally maintains support for VAX. Your mental model of expected hardware isn't exactly wrong in the general case, but it's also not exactly applicable here.

chungy 2mo ago

> Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. You can make ISO images that boot fine from both CD and USB sticks, when written to either format. Why "Fix" something that ain't broke?