Al Williams, Book

[Bern]

I bought the book, "Build Your Own Printed Circuit Board", by Al Williams. When I try to load the CD that came with the book, nothing happens. I go to the CD drive, and it says it can’t find it. Never had this problem before. Put in another CD, and it came up OK. Apparently my system is OK. Prefer not to download it off the net. I have tried to locate an E-mail address for Al Williams, or his company, AWC, with no success. Anybody else use this CD, and have any problems? Is it me, my system, the CD, or what? Looking for help, and also possibly a contact for Al.

[jollyrgr]

A couple of dumb questions.
Is the Al Williams a factory "pressed" CD or is it a "burned" CD? Some small CD shops are now making burned CDs as originals. They are printed just like a regular CD but use a series of CD burners to produce the CD instead of the manufactured CD.<p>If it is a burned CD, how old is your CD-Rom drive? Does it read CD-R type discs?<p>I know that these appear as dumb questions but I have run across this problem helping others before. It has been quite some time since I ran across CD drives that cannot read burned CD-Rs but it does happen on older computers.

[Mike]

CD-R discs are also green, or any color besides silver, so they are easy to tell the difference between them and regular CDs. I wish they sold silver CDs, then I could sell the software I write and it would actually look professional.<p>You could also try using a CDRW drive to burn a copy of that CD-ROM and try using it again. CDs often get scratched to where they cannot be read, but burning a copy of it makes the drive work extra hard to get through the scratches then burn a perfect copy. Also, use high-quality media.<p>Do I assume you have dial-up, so you don't want to download it? because as long as you own the book, I am pretty sure downloading from p2p networks is legal, as that may be the only place to find it.

[Bern]

Thanks to both of you. If you think the question is dumb, then I am the really dumb one, because I have no idea. Reading the reply from Mike, it must be CD-R, because it is green. I bought this system in Feb. of ’02. Other than that I don’t know what it can or cannot read. I have never had problems with any other CDs.<p>Mike, I will check with a couple of my buddies, and see if I can locate a CDRW. That would be worth a try. Yes you are right about me using a dial-up. Not only that, but out here in the sticks where I live, (this is only up the road about 20 miles http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/) our telephone system uses multiplex. It is very common to see my baud rate drop way below 0.100 Kbps, 0.030 and below is common in the evenings when the phone system is busy.<p>Maybe I should just go ahead and try it, as it there might be a more current version than what I have, although it is copyrighted 2004.

[hp]

You could go to his original pcb page at http://www.wd5gnr.com/pcb.htm. Sroll down to the disclaimer section and click the 'E-mail me' link. I did not want to post his address here because the internet has become a massive spam melting pot.<p>You can also go to his main website here http://www.al-williams.com/index.htm.<p>Harrison<p>[ November 30, 2004: Message edited by: hp ]</p>

[Mike]

I'm suprised a PC made in 2002 doesn't read some CD-R's. That was a problem with very old PC's, but I've never seen a newer PC do that.<p>If you are able to play other CD-R discs, then you should be able to re-burn it onto different media. Sometimes drives just dont like a certain brand.

[wd5gnr]

Just to weigh in, I don't have much to do with the actual production of the book (that's McGraw Hill's thing). However, I would expect the CD to be pressed since they make quite a few of them at once.<p>I've passed this on to McGraw Hill customer service and I'm sure they will send him a replacement disk, which I suspect will take care of things.<p>Regards,

[Bern]

Thanks Al, - - - <p>Received the new CD. Everythings up and running. Looking good. Very glad I invested in your book, even if it did have a little hick-up.

[Mike6158]

Now that's what I call service. I like his book too. Lot's of good info in there.

[Chris Smith]

And maybe, they forgot to burn the disk?<p>Check for a two color disk, one part shows the burn, the other is the blank left over space caused from the disk never quite being full?

[wd5gnr]

Glad they fixed it for you. Time was when they pressed these CDs, but I don't know if that's still true or not. A pressed CD won't have the two colors.<p>Let us all know when you sucessfully make your first board!