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From: tgoose@eng.umd.edu (Jason Garms)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: CD Porta Drive from CD Technologies?
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.044349.24418@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 91 04:43:49 GMT
References: <1991Apr2.082922.1999@netcom.COM>
Sender: news@eng.umd.edu (C-News)
Reply-To: tgoose@eng.umd.edu (Jason Garms)
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Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
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In article <1991Apr2.082922.1999@netcom.COM>, james@netcom.COM (James L. Paul) writes:
> Do either of these drives work with A/UX? For example, If I buy the
> A/UX CD from Apple, will I be able to use it? I called Cd Technologies,
> and they couldn't tell me if I could. (No reviews of CD Rom drives that
> I have seen say anything about using them with A/UX.)
> 
> If I buy A/UX on CD do I have to have an Apple CD SC? (I hope not.)
> 
I am 99% sure that Apples A/UX software will only work with the Apple CD ROM
drive.  If anyone out there knows differently, please correct me.  Unfortunatly, Apples current support of 3rd party SCSI devices with A/UX seems to be slim to non-existant.

The Apple CD ROM drive is actually a good mechanism.  It is..how shall we say... industrial strength.  From what I hear it will probably last you a lot longer than many of the other drives.  Although if you only use it occasionally, this is no big deal.  If you play CDs on it while using your Mac, this may be a big deal.

The only problem I have ever heard of with the Apple CD ROM player comes from the fan.  From my understanding, the original models had a fan which SUCKED dirt into the mechanism which caused problems(dirt on a laser read head).  This problem is fixed by an Apple Authorized upgrade.  This upgrade entails cleaning the unit and REMOVING the fan(sounds kind of like a downgrade to me).  Anyway the new CD ROM units don't come with fans so the problem is no longer... (plus they are much quieter!)

Jason Garms
tgoose@eng.umd.edu