ftlja@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (AHERN LANCE J) (09/29/90)
The October AmigaWhirled has an ad (p. 43) for a 650MB optical CD-ROM (CDx-650, internal or external) that reads ISO 9660/High Sierra discs (like the CDTV) and can play audio CDs. It includes a disc with the Fred Fish library (through FF360) and other stuff, ~420 MB of pd software. They left out or misstated some important info which I got from a phone call: ~380 ms average access time ~150 Kbps on reads (obviously a read-only device) software for playing audio allows for programming, etc., but obviously this can only be controlled from the Amiga since discs are 5-1/4", the internal box will not fit in an A3000 (the ad says it will!, big OOPS) for a stock A2500 (A2090a controller) you must also buy a FastCard from Xetec (an additional $50) - the drive won't work with the A2090a (sorry, didn't ask about any others) I'm not sure on this, but I think you need to buy a SCSI cable, too. Xetec's phone number is 913-827-0685 (for more info). If anyone out there buys one soon could you please post a report (performance and compatibility, especially). Does anyone know of potential competing products (besides Active Circuits ~$5000 optical r/w system). thanks, Lance