CompuServe Thread

#Eraseable Optical Drives

4 messages in this thread
#52826From: Joseph C. PizzicaroliMar 17, 1992 9:25 PM
Does anyone out there have any experience with eraseable optical drives for the Amiga? I'm interested in Ricoh's 640 MB unit, and would be using a GVP Series II accelerator/SCSI controller to talk to it. There are also some 1 GB units out there, but Ricoh seems to have the best price ($2299 external, $1899 internal, $349/cartridge). Any advice or experience with this or other combinations would be helpful. Thanks, Joe Pizzicaroli
#52848From: Chris GentschMar 18, 1992 12:53 AM
JOE, I am researching the same thing. I know from friends that they work quite well with their macs, and generally that means fine with Amigas. Briwall sells these guys cheap ($1900 for the one you mentioned). the tradeoff is speed – about the same as an old slow drive 35-65ms, much faster on adjacent track reads. I'm thinking of one for big 3D animations – my last project used up 5-50 meg ricoh cartriges (magnetic) and all the rest of my hard drive space. However, for the same money as optical, you can get a gig harddrive that screams 5-4megabytes/second transfer Then, using JPEG in ADpro, you can archive the big 24 bit files at 1/20th their size without apparent loss. so this is what I'm leaning towards until the next generation of screaming opticals come out.
#52974From: Wayne ColeMar 19, 1992 1:36 AM
Chris, DO you know of a low cost supplier of the Ricohs? I am paying $119 plus 8.25% tax. I was hoping to find some around $80 or so. wmc
#53003From: Chris GentschMar 19, 1992 4:14 PM
I know, expensive by current standards, but I guess Ricoh is not pushing this product much anymore – favoring the opticals. I have ordered cartriges from some mac mailorder place for around $108. I think I'm going to switch to 128meg opticals for most stuff and a gig drive for most work.