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From: mingo@well.sf.ca.us (Charles Hawkins Mingo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.mac.hardware,comp.sys.mac.programmer,rec.audio
Subject: Re: DAT backup for MAC?
Message-ID: <23206@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: 17 Feb 91 23:04:40 GMT
References: <789@david.UUCP> <23192@well.sf.ca.us> <27BDB6B4.17437@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 26

In article <27BDB6B4.17437@orion.oac.uci.edu> bdugan@teri.bio.uci.edu (Bill Dugan) writes:
>In article <23192@well.sf.ca.us> mingo@well.sf.ca.us (Charles Hawkins Mingo) writes:
>>[...] 
>>	It's a bit like how you can't use a conventional CD player to play
>>CD-ROM's.  You need a hardware interface to the deck's controller.
>
>I have always wondered why CD-ROM drives are so expensive when compared to
>the consumer audio CD players.  CD-ROM drives use the same mechanism, don;t
>need D/A converters, and all they really need is a SCSI card on-board.
>Am I spouting mixed-up untruth, or should CD-ROM drives cost $200?

	It has to do with production quantity.  Tens of millions of CD 
players are made each year; only a few tens of thousands of CD-ROM's 
(if that) are.  When I purchased my first CD player in 1983 (an NEC 803CD),
it cost $1250, and the cheapest available was a Denon for about $850.

	DAT decks involve the tape mechanism of a VCR, with the D/A converter
of a CD player.  Yet DAT's cost much more than a VCR and a CD player combined.
Mind you, DAT prices are falling fast, and some speculate they'll cross the
critical $500 price barrier, which is the threshold for widespread acceptance,
based on the VCR and CD experience.
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
Charlie Mingo					Internet: mingo@well.sf.ca.us 
2209 Washington Circle #2				  mingo@cup.portal.com
Washington, DC  20037	    CI$: 71340,2152	AT&T:  202/785-2089