The Library of Congress, Contracts and Logistics Service, 1701 Brightseat Road, Landover, MD 20785

66 -- COMPUTER-BASED TEST DEVICE FOR PRECISION MEASUREMENT AND DISPLAY OF PARAMETERS OF COMPACT DISCS SOL IN95-21 DUE 062195 POC Katherine M. Phillips, Contracting Officer, (202)707-0400. The Library of Congress intends to negotiate with Audio Development USA, Inc., Des Moines, Iowa for the purchase of a CD CATS SA3 Advanced Module and Host Computer. The Preservation Directorate is planning to begin an extensive series of accelerated aging tests on samples of CDs to CDs to serve as archival media. A precision tester is required which can measure the operating parameters of existing CDs such as CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-I, CD-ROM XA, CD-R, and Photo CD as specific in the de facto standards established by Philips/Sony, the developers of Compact Discs, in their various Red, Yellow, Green, Orange, Blue, and White Book publications and in their recommendations for jitter and effect length. Time-interval analysis must be provided to measure standard deviation (jitter) of land and pit features on the discs, for features on the discs, for features in the 3T to 11T range. The tester must be both physically modular and software controllable in order to accommodate the testing of new Compact Disc formats, such as the separate formats for video CDs proposed by Sony and by Matsushita. The tester must provide printout of the numerical values of static and dynamics CD parameters, their minimum, maximum, and average values, and provide both on-screen and printout of graphical presentations of these. As the Library will be performing physical inspection by microscope (a precision Zeiss Axiomat metalurgical microscope adapted for optical disk inspection) of CD regions where problems are evident, the tester must provide a color graphic presentation of the disc surface indicating the regions where parameters are below specification. Because of the extreme density of CD recordings, unguided microscopic inspection is not feasible, we must know the precise region to inspect. This will allow us to determine the physical nature and causes of problems, such as substrate darkening, delaminatio of a specific layer, feature deformation, etc. SEE Note 22. (0138)

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