#DAK caddyless $200 drive
6 messages in this thread
Hi!
I just joined this forum because I heard the DAK folks were here
sometimes, and I was thinking of getting the $399 CDROM drive in your latest
catalog.
If you don't mind my jumping in here, I had a question or two… I
should probably warn you, however, that I'm a complete neophyte on CDROM's
and the only reason I'm even thinking of getting one is because I figure if I
don't start soon, catching up will be like someone trying to learn about PC's
now — a daunting prospect! 🙂
Anyway, my system is a 486-50 with a Maxtor SCSI drive and Data
Technology adapter card. Would the $399 drive run on such a system? Are their
other components I would need? Aside from some "fun" stuff, I'm thinking I
would probably use the drive for my consulting business and get some CDROM
products from companies like Dun & Bradstreet, Standard & Poors, etc. (not
cheap, but then my dialup costs to these aren't cheap, either!).
I'm also planning on buying a notebook soon — probably a Toshiba or
possibly the NCR 3170. Would the $399 drive work with a notebook?
As a general question, could you (or someone else) point me in the
direction of some basic CDROM info — a primer of sorts — such as, are files
accessed on a CDROM accessed like a file on a hard drive or floppy? Do you
use DOS commands? (e.g., will "dir" tell me what's on the disk?) or is there
some other access program that one needs to use?
I appreciate any and all info! 🙂 I know it's a lot of questions…
BTW, hope your financial woes get straightened out — I've bought a fair
amount of stereo stuff from you in the past and have always been happy.
— Helene
You might consider a SCSI CD-ROM drive.
Albert,
Thanks for your suggestion…but you can "expand" it a bit, please. What
difference does it make? What are the 3 or 4 key things I should be
considering before making a purchase?
I've noticed that you seem quite knowledgeable on all this, so I hope
you don't mind my picking your brain, but all this stuff is quite new to me.
It's funny; I've always thought of myself as being quite conversant when it
comes to computers having graduated from an old Apple with only 64K to a DOS
286 machine to my present 486-50mhz machine (whee!!). But, now, we start
talking cdrom and I go "duh" 🙂
Thanks much!!
— Helene
Helene,
If you have a spare card slot, you should have no trouble installing either
of the drives we sell. If your notebook has a free slot it will work
there, too (but it probably doesn't — this is usually part of the
trade-off of making it small).
Your other alternative would be to buy a SCSI drive. This would be more
expensive, but theoretically, it should work with your existing SCSI drive
so you wouldn't need to tie up another slot. In practice, it can be tricky
getting this kind of setup to work.
Once you have the CD-ROM drivers installed, DOS will be able to read your
CD discs and display files/directories just like any floppy or hard drive.
You can copy files from the CD onto your hard drive, too.
Most of the CD applications include their own software. Most are DOS
applications — there are very few Windows CD apps on the market.
Thanks for your comments about our company. I'm sure we'll be around for
another 28 years. Our last catalog was a tremendous success!
Bryan/DAK
Bryan,
Thank you for your prompt (and very informative!) reply 🙂 As it so
happens, my desktop machine does have a spare card slot, so that's not a
problem and, since I'm not a big Windows user, that's no "biggee" either.
I'll probably go ahead and order the $399 drive as my understanding is
that one needs this faster drive to run multi-media stuff once I also bought
a sound card? correct?
One last thing…I have an extra bay for an internal drive. From the
photo in the catalog, it looked like these were external drives — correct?
It doesn't matter much, just wondering.
Thanks again and I'm glad you're all optimistic about the future!
— Helene
Helene,
If you are certain that you'll require MPC compatibility, you'd need to be
looking at drives in a higher price range. Unfortunately, just because a
drive claims to meet MPC specs doesn't mean that it will run your
applications as fast as you expect it to.
DAK will almost certainly be introducing new drives soon. We have a
blockbuster new MPC product coming out in the next catalog (probably the
most exciting product I've used since I joined DAK) and lots of new goodies
in the works.
Bryan/DAK