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From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware,comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Toshiba XM-3201 and the Mac IIfx
Message-ID: <65766@coherent.coherent.com>
Date: 4 Aug 90 00:36:54 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Distribution: comp
Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 25

I spent about fifteen minutes on the phone this afternoon, checking on
whether the Toshiba XM-3201 CD-ROM drive would work properly with a Mac
IIfx (I have one of the former, and am thinking of upgrading to the
latter in the near future).  I spoke to the folks at Optical Media
International (the authors of the driver which Toshiba OEMs for sale
with the XM-3201) and with Toshiba's CD-ROM tech support group in San
Jose.

The consensus: at the moment, the XM-3201 does _not_ work reliably with
the IIfx.  Some people have had problems with this configuration;  some
of those people have been able to work around the problem by using a
long (6') SCSI cable.

The problem is apparently due the high speed of the IIfx SCSI bus,
according to the gentleman at Toshiba to whom I spoke.  He gave me the
name and number of someone at Toshiba's main disk-products department
who can apparently provide more-detailed information; I'll phone him on
Monday.  I was assured that Toshiba is actively pursuing a solution to
the problem.

So... if you have a IIfx, or are planning to upgrade to one, be aware
that the XM-3201 mechanism may not work with it.  This mechanism is
marketed directly by Toshiba, and is also used in many of the
third-party CD-ROM drives (e.g. the CD Technology Porta-Drive,
MicroTech's CD600, and several others).