Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!pinyon.libre.com!not-for-mail From: goodey@pinyon.libre.com (Chris Goodey) Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom Subject: Re: CDROM for Laptops? Date: 14 Mar 1994 15:49:03 -0700 Organization: Evergreen Communications Lines: 29 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2m2pkv$d14@pinyon.libre.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: pinyon X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Stig Ove Johnsen (stigove@lise.unit.no) wrote: : What's the story about Laptop CD-ROM-drives? : I have heard a rumour about that there is some models : with PCMCIA-interface's, but what drives are there? : And, does it exist CD-ROM-drives that have BOTH PCMCIA : and SCSI-interface? (So that I could use it on my other computer too.) The PCMCIA is an interface standard in the sense the the standard AT bus (ISA) is a standard and EISA is a standard and the new Vesa local bus is a standard. It doesn't really make sense to make a cd-rom with a PCMCIA interface although I suppose someone could do it. It does make sense to get a PCMCIA scsi controller (and they are starting to show up, I am sure I have heard product announcments for them.) Since a great deal of cd-roms come with scsi interfaces this would be the best way to go, in my opinion. I personally use a parallel port to scsi adapter that works fine but is not as fast as a normal scsi interface. It depends on the pc parallel port. The new EPP models can run several megabytes a second. A bi-directional port as found on many laptops can run reasonably fast but certainly not enough to do video from a cd-rom. In my informal testing I got read rates from disc drives in the 40kb to 120kb a second range. The fastest speed was using a Toshiba portable with its bi-directional port mode enabled. This would be fast enough for many cd-rom applications but not for games requiring double-speed drives. -- Chris Goodey (goodey@libre.com) Down with long signature lines!