CompuServe Messages

George, I have a DAK external drive attached to an IBM PS/2 30/286 system with 10MhZ 286, 4MB RAM, Windows 3.0, and DOS 5.0. I have found that CD-ROM based titles that do text search & retrieval, still graphics, and audio without animation work OK. However, titles from National Geographic (Mammals and Presidents) which use animation and audio either work too slowly to be usable or else do not play out at all. Especially the sound/animation sequences of the Presidents package have proven to be troublesome. Other CD-ROM drives/attachment features which are MPC compliant are able to handle these products quite nicely on 8MhZ 8086 IBM PS/2 model 25 systems. I have discussed this problem with DAK technical support (I had to write to them in order to make contact). They tell me that the problem is that the Sony drive/attachment card package that DAK is selling does not have buffer capability and therefore cannot sustain the data rate required to handle these sequences. Because of this, I have serious questions about the suitability of this drive for multimedia applications that will be developed over the next few years which will expect the CD-ROM drive to have 150KB or better sustained data rate capability. A faster Intel processor will not solve this problem if the CD-ROM drive and attachment feature is inherently not able to handle this data rate. There is nothing wrong with the DAK package as long as the buyer understands its limitations. I think that it is a mistake to suggest to buyers that it might be OK for software products which require MPC compliant systems. The price is great but there are some important performance limits that the buyer needs to understand.