Mark.Bryant@p1.f54.n382.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Mark Bryant) (05/27/90)
In an article <jimbo@ic.Bekeley.EDU> writes: > Has anyone tried the NEC CDR35? Is it a "consumer CD" that will burn out > as suggested above? I noticed that it is quoted at $420 in the MacConnection > ad in MacWorld which is a GREAT price. I wrote a review of this drive for ECHOMAC a week or two ago, which is reproduced below. Since the time I wrote this, I have become more reconciled to the speed problems. With the 20MHz '030 machine, running a 2MB RAM cache, the access time is still slow, but acceptable. With a slower Mac, it's still likely to be too slow. ------------------------- MacConnection is advertising the NEC CDR-35 "Intersect" CD-ROM reader for $385. I recently purchased one of these units, and I thought I would post my impressions. In a nutshell, it's a great concept and a great price, but it's lacking in execution. I wouldn't recommend it for most purposes, although it's perfectly adequate for the purpose for which I'm using it. THE GOOD: It's a really neat idea. The ROM player itself is basically a "Discman" which docks into a SCSI interface. With an external battery adapter (not included -- I don't know how much it costs), you can just pull the "Discman" part out of the docking unit, plug in your headphones, and go jogging with it! The whole unit is quite small -- a little more than half the size in all dimensions as a normal "zero footprint" external hard disk. The manual says it weighs 2 pounds, but it doesn't feel that heavy to me. It looks like it would fit neatly in a Portable's carrying case, and I carried it back and forth to work a few days in my briefcase, along with all the other junk that's usually in there. The CD reader comes packaged with a AC to 15 volt adapter and power cord, and a 25-pin to 50-pin SCSI cable. There's a little detachable plastic cover that covers the connector to the SCSI adapter when the "Discman" part is out of the adapter (looks like something that's sure to get lost after a couple of weeks). The volume thumbwheel control is mounted on the front of the drive. All other controls are on top. There are all the standard controls that you see on a "Discman" for controlling the playback of audio CDs. Nothing fancy as far as programming the playback -- it has a button to "Repeat" playing the disk, but that's it. There's a "Play" button and forward and backward track jump buttons. There's an eject button, but it's not really functional. A large LED window shows the track number being played, or displays "PC" when it's in use as a data disk. It doesn't use a caddy for the CD -- you just lift up the top cover and put the CD in, just like you do on a Discman. It's a bit finicky about the sequence you go through in mounting and dismounting disks. You have to open the cover, wait for the CD to spin down, drag its icon to the trash, and then remove the disk. You can then put in another disk and close the cover, and it will mount automatically to the desktop. So long as you follow that sequence, it works well. If you do it differently - like dragging the icon to the trash before opening the door - the Mac is apt to crash. The software comes in a separate package, and is priced at $64, making the total cost of the drive $389 + $69 = $458. In the software kit is a single floppy disk and a (rather skimpy) manual. Contents of the disk: Audio CD Access 9738 ufob ufox Tue, Mar 20, 1990 Desktop 3732 FNDR ERIK Wed, Mar 28, 1990 Disinfectant 1.6 148441 APPL DFCT Tue, Jan 30, 1990 disinfectant 1.6 info 1427 TEXT McSk Wed, Jan 31, 1990 Foreign File Access 28769 INIT ufox Wed, Dec 13, 1989 High Sierra File Access 14793 ufob ufox Fri, Jan 12, 1990 ISO 9660 File Access 14787 ufob ufox Fri, Jan 12, 1990 music box 25455 DFIL DMOV Tue, Mar 6, 1990 NecCDDrvr 10359 INIT NCDR Fri, Feb 9, 1990 Please 'Double-Click' me first 23563 APPL Dc@P Tue, Mar 20, 1990 Number of files = 10 Number of folders = 0 Total file size = 281064 Installation is as simple as dragging the INITs and "ufob" files to the System Folder, installing the DA, and restarting the Mac. I haven't really used the audio part of it much (I bought it for a data disk, and my Sony Discman works just fine for playing audio CDs, thanks), so I can't comment too much as to how good it is. The desk accessory has the standard controls for playing the disk, and has a time per track counter. Audio CDs show up on the desktop (can't remember offhand if this is what happens with the Apple disk). The DA doesn't have all the capabilities of the Apple DA, and see below for some problems. I've run it on a MacII with scads of INITs, a MacPlus with a moderate number of INITs, and a MacPlus enhanced with a TSI Gemini '030 (20MHz, and it has a high-speed SCSI port), with no problems at all. In each case, the CD mounted to the desktop the first time, with no glitches at all that I'm aware of (so far). THE BAD: It's SSSLLLLLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW! I mean, we're talking 20-30 seconds every time you hit a SFOpen dialog (even if you're accessing a drive other than the CD). You double-click on a folder, and go get a cuppacoffee. I've used an Apple CD-SC drive before, and this is *much* slower than that. For this reason alone, I think I would leave any CD in the drive unmounted, unless I really needed to get to the stuff on the disk. I don't think it's feasible (wouldn't be to me anyway) to have it on the desktop all the time, unless you're not in a hurry to get anything done. Running with a fair sized control panel cache seems to help some, but not much. For what it's worth, the user's manual says that the data retrieval rate is 150k bytes/sec, and that the average seek time is 1.5 sec. It has only one 50-pin SCSI port. Got to be the last thing on the chain. It's also pre-set to SCSI Address 1, and there's no way to change that. I assume that it's terminated (but the manual doesn't say). On my MacII, I have four other disks on the chain, usually terminating with an external terminator on the last drive. When I connected the CD-ROM to this Mac, without the external terminator, everything worked fine (and it probably would not have if the CD-ROM were not terminated). The only audio output is from the stereo miniplug output near the front of the drive. There are no RCA output jacks. The sound level coming through to the headphones seems a bit low. On my Sony Discman, it's uncomfortable to turn the volume up much more than halfway -- with this unit it's just barely too loud when turned all the way up. Like I said earlier, I haven't played much with the audio playback features. Some of the buttons in the DA don't work, and there is absolutely *nothing* in the documentation as to what they are supposed to do. The "track forward" button works OK, but the "track backward" button doesn't work at all. In just a few minutes of playing with the DA, I was able to get it to freeze up, such that I had to reboot to get control of the Mac again. This needs some work, obviously. (Minor beef) The access light is mounted on the top of the drive, so if you've got it sitting on a shelf above eye level (as I do), there's no way to tell when the CD is being accessed. ON BALANCE: I'm running it on a BBS, and in that application I don't have to work with it on the desktop -- all accesses are directly to pathnames. For this, it works very well. I can imagine that in other applications where putting it on the desktop isn't important -- like attached to a file server where you just get to it to copy files over -- it would be OK, and would certainly be an economical solution for getting lots of material online. I can't really recommend it for daily use where it would be mounted on the desktop -- the slowdown of all operations (not just those involving the CD) is just too great. Again, I think it's a wonderful idea -- I just wish they could have made it a bit faster. I'm quite satisfied with it -- but I knew what I was getting into when I got it. I would imagine that some folks that buy it are going to be mighty disappointed. -- Mark Bryant via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!382!54.1!Mark.Bryant INET: Mark.Bryant@p1.f54.n382.z1.FIDONET.ORG