#CD ROM requirements
4 messages in this thread
When purchasing just a CD ROM (no Multimedia capabilities) what, other than
the obvious price, speed and quality should one look for. Are there
certain titles that will not work on certain drives? What are the minimum
pc requirements when not interested in Multimedia? Basically, a friend of
mine has a 386sx/20 with 2mb RAM, 80mb hard disk and would like to add a CD
ROM so his son (who is in high school) can use it for educational purposes
(encyclopedia, etc.). Also, what's a good one for this purpose but that
could also be used if he upgrades to Multimedia? THanks.
Dawn, our catalog has a very good article describing the various optical
formats out there and what is required to be "MPC" compatible. If you want
a catalog, let me know.
Basically though, your system needs to have:
386SX or higher
2 MB of RAM
30 MB hard disk
VGA or VGA+ display
Two button mouse
101 key keyboard
And the CDROM drive needs to:
have CD-DA outputs
Have a sustained transfer rate of 150kb/sec or higher without consuming
more than 40% of CPU time.
You also need a sound board with sampling and synthesizer capabilities.
^^^^^^^^ not tottally nesccary, but
these are the "MPC"
requirements
Let me know if you have any more questions!
=Ivan Woehr= =CD Rom, Inc. (303) 231-9373= [Via Whap!]
Why not MPC compatibility? With the only requirements for MPC
compatibile\ty being speed and throughput, explain why so adamantly against
MPC? Street prices are in the $200 price on drives that meet spec. As a
matter of fact I find it hard to find a non MPC drive. Frank PS Most of the
encyclopedias are MM FH
Dawn,
I think what you want to do is get a CD-ROM player that can run multimedia,
but wait to get a sound board when you're ready, right? As Frank Harris
pointed out, most of the encyclopedias (and I would add most of the good
educational discs of all kinds) use multimedia, so you really should get
that capability. The library here should have a file on the MPC standards
which would give you the information you need to buy a player AND a sound
board. The prices on players that are or are not MPC compatible don't
differ enough to NOT go for MPC. I think you'd be happier in the long run
getting the best you can possibly afford, since once you're hooked (smile)
it would not be very long before you would want to upgrade, anyway. Good
luck!
Kathy <<– The One-Off CD Shop MidSouth, Inc.