User`s guide

"Fine; but, how do I ask the Family Doctor a question, peruse an
encyclopedia, and use other neat CD-ROM data disc products?"
Actually, with HS.FST in your SYSTEM/FSTs folder, you can click the CD- ROM
icon, display folders, and even load TEXT files from discPassage CD's. Your IIgs
is 'compatible enough' with ISO 9660 even if some of the PC filetypes are
unfamiliar. Still, this kind of access is hardly satisfactory. What you lack is
the software key to unlock the discPassage database. Your IIgs cannot run PC or
Mac versions of discPassage; but, it CAN run a for-GS database unlocker named
"discQuest"!
How do the systems match-up? Well, I tried out several CD's under
discPassage on a 33MHz '486 PC and discQuest on a IIgs with 10Mhz/64K ZipGSx. On
the PC you get to see an intro pic (which discQuest skips); and, in one case, a
sound file which played fine with discPassage did not work under discQuest.
As might be expected, pictures come in faster under discPassage because
discQuest must often spend extra seconds processing each PC-format image. The
larger the graphic and greater the number of colors, the bigger PC's advantage.
Based upon samplings of several CD's, discQuest often needs about 15 seconds to
load and display a pic that discPassage can handle in 3 seconds. Fortunately,
you can reduce this delay by selecting Preferences and setting Color to "Gray-
scale".
Both setups handled sound files well, consistently starting playback in
under 4 seconds. The big surprise of the face-off came when comparing time
required to open folders and display item choices-- for example, to open
"Ancient Civilizations" and list article titles. DiscPassage routinely took 10-
20 seconds; whereas discQuest seldom took even 2 seconds!
Just click the discQuest icon and, in a few seconds, the name and main
folders of the current discPassage-compatible CD appear in a scrollable Browse
window. From here you can open folders, do searches (by word, author, subject,
or title) and read articles in scrollable windows. Of course, you can also
listen to sound tracks, view pictures, and obtain printouts of text and
pictures.
A major benefit of having reams of text 'on the computer' is that you can
clip and save selections for use in articles, term papers, and other projects.
discQuest scores a "pretty good" here, since you are free to add and delete text
and can use Cut & Paste within whatever article you are viewing. The result may
then be saved to disk. At present, however, discQuest does not maintain more
than one text window on its desktop; nor does it support loading text files from
disk or opening a New (blank) text
window.
The standard discQuest package includes a sample CD (such as "Family
Doctor" or "Total Baseball"), fifteen pages of information and instructions, and
two diskettes. One diskette lets non-hard disk users start discQuest after a
bare-bones System 6.0 boot. The other will Install discQuest and a monospace
font (CoPilot.8) to hard disk plus, if desired, several support files. The
latter include HS.FST and drivers for popular CD-ROM readers plus the Media NDA
and Control Panel stuff to support playing musi
c CD's.