#M-O Drv. CD Readable?
6 messages in this thread
Hi all. I have a question. Will the current Magneto-Optical (MO) drives
read CD-ROM format? None of the sales brochures I've seen addresses this
issue. I'd like to purchase an MO drive, but it seems a waste if I would
also have to purchase a CD-ROM drive. Or, am I being too idealistic?
Thanks. John MacLerran 70274,457
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As far as I know, no current MO drives will read CD-ROM.
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Thanks Frank. Is it because of the different recording formats, or has no
one thought of it before? Regards -jm
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People have thought of it, and I've even heard talk about people working on
it, but the formats are different, so I'm sure the drive will be expensive
when and if it is made available.
Frank
The biggest difference is that most MO drives have distinct "cylinders" or
donut tracks where data is recorded. CD-ROM is one big spiral track like
the
phonograph it (CD-audio) replaced. CDRom suffers many performance problems
that are inherent in its use of the CDaudio standard as a starting point.
The MO systems dont need to play audio or conform to anyone else's
standard.
Say La Vie
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I believe that the new 3.5" MO drives from Sony and IBM support the use of
a 128MB MO disc and a 122MB optical read-only disc (O-ROM). In both cases
the performance is higher than CD-ROM. The advantage of supporting the
"Optical-ROM" is that MO discs cost too much for publishers to sell <$200
software. Hopefully the O-ROM's have a similar cost of goods to that of
CD-ROM.
These drives may be a good solution for the PC market. I also have been
told that an ISO standard exists for both the MO 3.5"and O-ROM 3.5"….
William Volk