Wearnes - another forgotten company. What sound cards produced? \ VOGONS

Wearnes - another forgotten company. What sound cards produced?

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by peklop

Posted on 2017-01-08, 00:24

peklop Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 251
Joined: 2016-11-17, 02:38
Location: Czech Republic

When i read about little known and forgotten computer companies i remember WEARNES.

When my first 4x speed Mashita (Panasonic-MatsuSHITa) drive died fastly after end of warranty, my second CD-ROM drive was 8x speed unit from WEARNES.
Today i searched Vogons for Wearnes and found only four matches. Wow, that need more research.
I four photo of the 8x drive here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... OM_(2).jpg
(not used over wikipedia and photographed by different czech wikipedia user)

Later i found local Czech magazine review, Wearnes sold 32x speed drives to end of the millennium:
http://www.svethardware.cz/recenze-cd-rom-wearnes-32x/45
Drive was reported as CDS-32x to ATAPI. I dont know if with or without Wearnes name. If without it can be only rebranded oem drive because design is different from old drives.
Review helped me, Wearnes used website http://www.wpinet.com.sg
achived here: http://web.archive.org/web/19980628113115/htt … .wpinet.com.sg/

Here is list of the Wearnes CD-ROM drives:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980628113505/htt … m.sg/ddrive.htm and writers: http://web.archive.org/web/19980628113457/htt … .sg/dwriter.htm
12x and 18x speed units still used typical ugly Wearnes front panel design. 20, 24 and 32x speed drives were different.

I checked FCC ID used for CD-ROM drives:
Wearnes Peripherals Intl (PTE) Ltd
https://fccid.io/JUG
in list are three Sound cards but i gooling and googling and cant find any informations about these cards.

found differend companies used Wearnes name:
https://fccid.io/G2D
Wearnes Technology Corporation Limited
produced monitors about 1989/1990

Wearnes Technology (Private) Limited
https://fccid.io/GUQ
produced VGA card about 1990, i googled and found card here:
http://www.recycledgoods.com/wearnes-vga-pro- … pf-wtvgaii.html
It was ISA WDC PF-WTVGAII - Wearnes VGA Pro II
Again different company name etched to PCB - WEARNES AUTOMATION PTE LTD

Fourth FCC ID name is Wearnes Systemax Corp https://fccid.io/GJ7
with only one product: Systemax 286

I found Wearnes still exist:
http://www.wearnespc.com/about/index.html
They still using same logo. But it looks like different company from Indonesia.

Who remember Wearnes products? Remember somebody their sound cards?

Reply 1 of 10, by jade_angel

Posted on 2017-01-08, 01:59

jade_angel Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 359
Joined: 2017-01-03, 00:10
Location: Virginia

I've only encountered their CD drives before, but the one I had was a bulletproof beast. I had a CDD-620 that came in my first "real computer" (an IBM PS/Valuepoint retrofitted with a 486DX4), and it hung around, moving from one system to another for quite a while. I finally gave it to a roommate to resurrect an old Mac in about 2010 or so and it was still working then. Great piece of hardware.

Main Box: Macbook Pro M2 Max
Alas, I'm down to emulation.

Reply 2 of 10, by Unknown_K

Posted on 2017-01-08, 07:16

Unknown_K Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1298
Joined: 2013-04-22, 18:59
Location: Youngstown, OH USA

I have one of their CDD-1020 drives (10x IDE).

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 3 of 10, by Ampera

Posted on 2017-01-08, 08:21

Ampera Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 900
Joined: 2016-11-16, 22:31

If you want you can write a collected repository of all that info and I will add it to the forum post.

Reply 4 of 10, by Roman78

Posted on 2017-01-08, 10:16

Roman78 Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 242
Joined: 2015-01-05, 08:58

My first CD-Rom drive was from Wearnes. And the list of CD-Rom drives is not complete as I noticed. I used to have the CDD-110, a double speed cd-rom drive whit it's own ISA interface card. Funny thing was that you simply could pull the cd-tray out by hand, because the tray had a little curvature.

Reply 5 of 10, by JidaiGeki

Posted on 2017-01-08, 11:16

JidaiGeki Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 587
Joined: 2010-12-22, 14:11
Location: Australia

I remember the brand here in Oz, was a clone maker as well.

Just dug up a review of a 386SX machine from 1991, unfortunately there isn't a clear pic of the whole machine available

Reply 6 of 10, by peklop

Posted on 2017-01-19, 01:53

peklop Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 251
Joined: 2016-11-17, 02:38
Location: Czech Republic

Thanks to all for replies.

Ampera wrote:
If you want you can write a collected repository of all that info and I will add it to the forum post.

I want but my English is so bad.

Reply 7 of 10, by peklop

Posted on 2017-01-19, 01:59

peklop Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 251
Joined: 2016-11-17, 02:38
Location: Czech Republic

Roman78 wrote:
My first CD-Rom drive was from Wearnes. And the list of CD-Rom drives is not complete as I noticed. I used to have the CDD-110, a double speed cd-rom drive whit it's own ISA interface card. Funny thing was that you simply could pull the cd-tray out by hand, because the tray had a little curvature.

Here i found detailed inspection of the PCB of the Wearnes CD-110 rebranded as Orchid CDS-3110. Ant the Sony CD-ROM interface card:
http://matthieu.benoit.free.fr/107.htm

And Manual:
http://matthieu.benoit.free.fr/pdf/CDS-3110.pdf

Reply 8 of 10, by kixs

Posted on 2017-03-20, 08:29

kixs Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 3370
Joined: 2013-01-31, 02:08
Location: Slovenia

A few Wearnes PC cases. Last one is Pentium era and has 12X CD-ROM unit.

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 9 of 10, by jp3149

Posted on 2017-03-20, 18:46

jp3149 Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: 2015-12-25, 16:32

kixs wrote:
A few Wearnes PC cases. Last one is Pentium era and has 12X CD-ROM unit.

Wearnes VGA PRO II

Attachments

Filename

WDCb isa video.JPG

File size

1.13 MiB

Views

1809 views

File license

Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 10 of 10, by kolmio

Posted on 2023-01-03, 19:11

kolmio Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 37
Joined: 2021-12-18, 17:56
Location: Finland

A keyboard with Cyrillic letters

Attachments

Filename

Wearnes keyboard.jpg

File size

459.76 KiB

Views

822 views

File license

Fair use/fair dealing exception

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to Sound

Main menu

Common searches