Kids Computer Part 2: Disc Image Magic

Last time we talked about the hardware needed for a simple kids computer setup. If you missed it go and read Kids Computer Part 1 and come back. Today we will be covering the tricky world of making disc images from game cds so they can be played from the computer without the need to load from a cd. The idea is to have all the games accesible from the desktop and be able to play all the games from the computer without the need of inserting cds. This is key for a great kids computer setup. CDs get scratched and lost. And CD players can be made to suffer at the hand of kids like my son Dante (read previews post).

This is Part 2 in a series for a kids Mac setup.

Building a Game Archive
An external drive might be useful to prep all your games so that you have a central archive of the cd images.

Know your Game CDs
The first thing you should do when you get a kids CD game is install it and try to figure out what dependencies it has, what kind of files does it have and what restrictions it has. Game developers make game CDs in many different ways. Some games are just one big Application that you can easily drag to the computer and play it. Other games require installation of supporting files. Some games, specially the ones made by the the bigger game companies, require that you physically have the CD inserted in the computer to be able to play it. If you install the game, eject the CD to find out if the physical CD is required or not. You will find that most games do require the CDs. But don’t worry, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

It’s all about Toast
Although Mac OS X comes with a very good Disk Utility Application, it will not convert all game CDs, specially the more complex hybrid ones. However, Roxio’s Toast Titanium ($59) will handle anything you throw at it. So, if you are in a budget, try Apple’s Disk Utility, otherwise invest in Toast if don’t already have it.

Step 1: Launch Toast

From Toast, select the Data Tab to build a CD of data. Then select Advanced from the drawer and select Mac Only. In this example we’re stripping out the PC version because we want to get rid of the autorun application that automatically launches when the disc is inserted.

Step 2: Add the Disc files

Click on “New Disc” to add a new disc to the list of files.

Insert the Game CD in the computer and navigate to choose the CD. Notice we see both the Mac and PC versions loaded. In this case, the one with the icon is the Mac version. Select it and press Choose.

Notice how the Game CD came in as a sub-directory of My Disc. Select all files from the game and move them up one level so that they belong now to My Disc and not the game.

Once All the files are moved up one level, double click the game folder so that we can copy it’s name, then double click on “My Disc” so that we can paste the game title and then delete the Game folder(not the renamed My Disc).

Step 3: Remove annoying behaviors

Delete the file .DS_Store. This file contains things like window attributes in OS X. This should prevent the disc window popping up when the disc image loads. This way the disc image can load transparently in the background.

Delete the file AutoRun. This is an invisible file that launches automatically when the disc is inserted. A lot of kids games have this to automatically launch the game when the disc is inserted. This will create a chaotic environment when you have ten different games loading at the same time each with their own AutoRun. Remove for peace and quiet during startup.

Step 4: Save Disc Image

Go to File > Save as Disc Image

Name that file however you please.

The almost final file.

From the finder, select the file and go to File > Get Info. From the Get Info window, select DiskImageMounter from the “Open with” pull down menu. DiskImageMounter comes with Mac OS X and is a background application that deals with the mounting and unmounting of disc images. Doing this will mount the Toast Image File in the backgound without the need to launch Toast. It also supresses all of the automatic window opening upon mounting when it’s a Toast image.

The final disc image.

It mounts, installs and plays perfectly. Look ma! no cds!

A note about Mounting CD Images. In Tiger, make sure you set the Verify Checksum to off in the Disk Utility Application. This will skip a very lengthy verification process. Panther users can use VerifyDI to turn that setting off. There are some CDs that are more picky than others. If you MUST open with Toast you can use ToastMount. Another option is to convert DMG files to ISO using Damage Isolation and open them with DiskImageMounter. In any case, good luck. Feedback is welcome.

Next post: software magic