Most soundcards will offer you CD controllers.

Please specify in centimeters what the current height of your ram is.

sharc wrote:

so i have two questions for you fine folks. first, can anyone recommend particularly reliable brands for an isa cd controller card?

Yes, many soundcards have them, but check twice if it's an IDE controller, not a proprietary one.

sharc wrote:

and second, i am in kind of a predicament with the ram since the frame that holds the 3.5 drives sits so close that the frame and ram will scrape against each other. so does anyone know which manufacturers put out 30-pin simm ram sticks that are a little shorter than average? odd question, but i figure if there's one place that i could get it answered, it's here.

Look for modules with 3 ram chips instead of 9.

Unfortunately, sharc does not even mention which type of CD drive he wants support for.

ah. well, now i feel dumb. the drive is a panasonic cr-589 with an ide cable so the sb16 in here takes care of that. derp.

the one set of ram i have that fits are panasonic (4mb, three chips), and i couldn't turn up any more of them by checking with friends or searching ebay. they're 12mm tall and will let the drive bracket in fairly comfortably; even shorter would be better but i don't know they go that small. the other set look to be by a company called reveal. they're 14mm and are much too tall (and are also three-chip, 4mb sticks).

I had a whole load of small ones, but since I got hit with a 486, I needed them myself. Where are you located?

i'm on the east coast of the us - it's fine if you don't have any to spare though, i don't need handouts so much as brand names to look for. hell if most ebay sellers can be bothered to bust out a ruler and measure a stick of ram they're selling at a dollar each.

I don't have any ram with brand names on it from those days.