Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!gumby.cs.caltech.edu!tim From: tim@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (Timothy L. Kay) Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi Subject: Are CD ROM drives interchangeable? Message-ID: Date: 12 Dec 90 17:04:03 GMT Sender: news@nntp-server.caltech.edu Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Lines: 12 Nntp-Posting-Host: gumby.cs.caltech.edu I can buy hard drives from many manufacturers. My SCSI driver on my workstation seems to be able to handle most of them. The same goes for tape drives. My question is, do CD ROM drives conform to some common command set? For example, are they simply treated as regular disk drives? (Obviously, there needs to be a special driver to understand the ISO9660 format, but can they share code with the regular disk drivers?) Or do CD ROM manufactures each use their own set of commands? Thanks in advance, Tim