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sony cdu33a-81 - interface?

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First post, by retropol

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Hi Guys,
I found a strange cdrom drive - sony cdu33a-81 - it looks like it has proprietary SONY interface (floppy connector instead of hdd).

Question is, do I need special controller for it?

Any ideas how to make it connected / workarounds if there are no special controllers around me?

Reply 1 of 30, by rasz_pl

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http://bitsandbytes.fis.usal.es/wordpress/com … pc-0001-p-1993/
COM.ALM_.PC_.0001.P_05.JPG
http://old.pinouts.ru/HD/CdRomSony_pinout.shtml

it maps and connects directly to 8bit ISA, I always wondered about possibility of making an adapter for all 3 to IDE, as IDE is also just a simple direct mapping to ISA bus

Open Source AT&T Globalyst/NCR/FIC 486-GAC-2 proprietary Cache Module reproduction

Reply 2 of 30, by dkarguth

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That interface is proprietary to Sony. There were several interfaces in the early 90s for CD-ROM drives, including Sony, Mitsumi, Panasonic SCSI, and IDE. All of these are completely different, and will not work with each other. Sound cards of the era often had CD-ROM controllers on them, and many supported the Sony interface. That is probably your best bet, as dedicated controllers are relatively hard to find. That is assuming you would even want to use this CD-ROM drive. It is most likely a single speed or maybe double speed drive, so it will be very very slow. I have one of the drives along with a MediaVision PAS card that supports it. However, those drives commonly have dead lasers, so it is likely it would not function even if you found a controller for it.

"And remember, this fix is only temporary, unless it works." -Red Green

Reply 3 of 30, by rasz_pl

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dkarguth wrote:

All of these are completely different

On the technical level, main 3 proprietary ones are almost 100% the same, and very close to IDE, they mainly differ by pinout arrangement. Japan was all about proprietary formats in the nineties, I suspect they got forced into supporting IDE by US computer companies tired of this crap.

Open Source AT&T Globalyst/NCR/FIC 486-GAC-2 proprietary Cache Module reproduction

Reply 4 of 30, by SirNickity

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rasz_pl wrote:

I always wondered about possibility of making an adapter for all 3 to IDE, as IDE is also just a simple direct mapping to ISA bus

I've been wanting to do this, too. I'm not totally sure why. Nobody really needs support for these drives anymore -- they're aging, rare, expensive, and offer no advantage over the plethora of IDE and SCSI models available. Yet, it's still one of my goals. Nostalgia's a !%#$.

I'm actually looking for the Sony CDU33A for testing. There's one on Ebay for $150. Egch. I want it, but I really can't justify that. I already have a multi-CD SB16, and a Panasonic and Mitsumi drive -- although I've had zero luck getting the latter one to work so far. That is very likely to be user error, though. I'm having a hard time finding solid documentation on the DOS driver syntax.

Reply 6 of 30, by peklop

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And some months ago i found photo of Aztech card with separate AZTECH CD-ROM INTERFACE. 40pins like IDE/Panasonic/Mitsumi but setting was different.

Reply 8 of 30, by peklop

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retropol wrote:
Hi Guys, I found a strange cdrom drive - sony cdu33a-81 - it looks like it has proprietary SONY interface (floppy connector inst […]
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Hi Guys,
I found a strange cdrom drive - sony cdu33a-81 - it looks like it has proprietary SONY interface (floppy connector instead of hdd).

Question is, do I need special controller for it?

Any ideas how to make it connected / workarounds if there are no special controllers around me?

For original question, you can try sound cards with OPTi chip.
Opti 929, Opti 929 or most of Opti 930 cards are with Sony interface and easy setup without jumpers.

Reply 9 of 30, by Intel486dx33

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That’s the first CD-ROM drive I owned back in 1993.
I had it in a 486dx33. With 4mb ram and Windows-3.11
That CD-ROM drive is really slow.
I would not bother with it unless you have a specific need.
A standard ide 4x or 8x CD-ROM drive would be much faster.

Now that you know the pin-out you could probably modify a 40 pin ribbon with a
34-pin connector to fit that CD-ROM drive.

Or even just cut off 34-rows of a 40-pin connector and then add the wires to work with the sony 34-pin out.

Reply 10 of 30, by retropol

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Thanks for comments - are helpful. Will try to find a soundcard with appropriate interface. I have bunch of them but I never put attention to these connectors.

It is not an issue about the speed

It is all about recreation of what was available these days, adequate tech to adequate age.

I can not accept building an old 486dx33 with a cdrom drive which was released 5-10years later than originally release 486dx33?

If these days such drives were available and computers were equipped with them, then retro hw must have it.

Reply 11 of 30, by Intel486dx33

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This is the ISA cdrom controller that came with my Sony 2x cdrom.
It’s a model # COR334

I had a ISA sound blaster 16 for a sound card.

Should work vanilla with Win3x, NT351, 95/98
Or any DOS boot floppy with CDROM support

You will need to load the CDROM driver MSCDEX in DOS. AUTOEXEC.bat and CONFIG.sys

https://archive.org/details/cd-driver-1.25

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Reply 13 of 30, by Intel486dx33

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Windows NT351/95/98 should automatically enable the cdrom during the installation.
I think the 2x cdrom is too slow to use with the installation of 2000/XP.
Actually, I think this 2x cdrom is too slow for the installation of Win95 and 98 too.
As it takes a long time even with a 4x cdrom.
Installation might take an hour or more with this 2x cdrom.
I think this 2x cdrom is adequate for Win3x and DOS. But not Win95/98 installations.
It’s just too slow.

Sony did not start making Vaio computers until 1996
So this 2x sony cdrom kit is from 1993 and prior to Windows 95.

I have Some early Sony Vaio computers and they mainly use Intel CPU, Intel chipset motherboards, ATI graphics, and Yamaha sound chips.

If you wanted to build a 486 or Pentium computer that complies with these choices then you would probably want to use these components. Sony also made white 1.44 floppy drives. White Sony PC speakers,

Reply 14 of 30, by bakemono

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With a 2x CD-ROM drive it stands to reason that you can copy any CD contents to the HDD in 37 minutes or less. Then install Windows from HDD, which is the smart way of doing it. A 2x CD-ROM is infinitely better than floppies in any case.

I had a 2x sony drive and interface card. IIRC it came with the game Megarace as a pack-in.

Reply 15 of 30, by peklop

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I know drive is so slow. But question if is supported 😀 . I remember from K-6/K-7 times i connected Single-Speed external SCSI drive from Apple to PCI ultra SCSI controller and worked.

And under Windows 9x not all controller worked with build-in drivers. Some were detected or work with build in drivers.
Some need install separate drivers from manfacturer. Some sound card drivers provided CD-ROM drivers instantly. But i remember sound card without W9x drivers for CD-ROM. It worked only with W3.1 driver. Or with DOS driver loaded before Win9x started. Drive wasnt listed in Device manager.

Reply 16 of 30, by Intel486dx33

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Download one of these dos boot disks. I think they have cdrom support.
https://www.allbootdisks.com/download/dos.html
Create a floppy disk.
Put in computer and boot off the floppy, It should enable your Sony CD-ROM drive to work.
Then you can fdisk and format your hard-drive.
Then type A:\sys to put system files on hard-drive.
Then type this A:\xcopy *.* C:\
This will copy all the files on the floppy to the hard-drive. So you will have a bootable hard-drive with cdrom support.
Later you can install DOS266 into a DOS266 directory.
And then install Win3x into a “Windows” directory.
So you will have a fully working Windows 3x computer with cdrom enabled.

Reply 17 of 30, by retropol

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i have found a music card with the needed interface. Will try it soon. BTW - is this something of good quality or a crap (taking early 90s into account)?

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Reply 18 of 30, by elianda

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I have the manual here: ftp://retronn.de/driver/Sony_CDU33A/sony_cdu33a_manual.pdf
In the same folder is also the driver disk and the 1.74d driver.

I have a few of my old systems equipped with a CDU-33A. I usually put it at port 340.

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