Nemo1985 wrote on 2022-07-12, 06:57:

Is there any good reason to use a period correct cd-dvd reader (writer) in our builds?

Less noise and lower reading speeds.

Both of which can be easily achieved on newer drives using free tools like Nero Drive Speed (Win9x) and CDBeQuiet! (DOS).

I just had a flashback to when I had 2x CD writer and it took almost 40 minutes to burn one disc 😬.

I dunno, I prefer having DVD drives in my retro machines for ease of use. You can put more stuff on it than on CD, obviously 😀. I only have CD writer in my 486 DOS machine, but that's because I ran out of DVD drives. Plus it has externally accessible CF card so I can quickly connect it to modern PC and transfer data to and from it.

I also have both DVD and Blu Ray burners on my Ryzen (it's getting reeeeeally hard finding new, somewhat modern, PC cases with 5.25" bays 😅). Idea is to make DVDs with all required software/drivers for each of my retro PCs, that's why I prefer DVDs, less disc juggling.

Do you take advantage of dvd in dos or windows prior windows 98? I'm not sure...
Also I'm taking care of the stash of the cd-dvd drives I have and despite them being reviewed 2 years ago, some of them gone bad.
One didn't even turn on, another has become slow as hell and clean the lens didn't help, even a third one an HL-DT-ST GSA-H22N has the quirks that is able to read dvd but not cd.
I noticed that most of the problem are due to the rubber belts, but it's weird. I kept them in a closed box and a safe environment.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2022-07-12, 06:57:

Is there any good reason to use a period correct cd-dvd reader (writer) in our builds?

The whirr. 😀

The late 486 era would see cheap Mitsumi 4X's and these were sold under different brands (i.e. Turtle Beach). There were also some value 'multimedia kits' that'd have a WSS-derived sound card with a 2x-4x CD-ROM. It wasn't just Creative doing that with their SB16.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-07-12, 07:32:

Nemo1985 wrote on 2022-07-12, 06:57:

Is there any good reason to use a period correct cd-dvd reader (writer) in our builds?

Less noise and lower reading speeds.

Both of which can be easily achieved on newer drives using free tools like Nero Drive Speed (Win9x) and CDBeQuiet! (DOS).

I think opening and closing the drive resets the speed , which can be a problem if you play games with multiple cd swaps.

But yeah what others said , I used to use a sony 48x but it was noisy as hell , the loud constant jet spinning up and down noises drove me nuts , coupled with the loud fans in my case was pretty unpleasant. So I got a 4x drive in the end.

However as much as I really do like my NEC CDR-273 4X speed drive its been acting up lately and sometimes refuses to read certain CD's , I managed to get it to read beneath a steel sky and played the intro for a bit and somehow that helped the drive start working again with other discs , its very temperamental.

Kind of why I'm holding out hope for a cheap go tek like device for reading bin/cue files that comes with a cd in for audio out.

Period correct for a 486 was a Philips CDD2600 scsi

Had a 2x and 4x speed CD readers in my 386dx but changed it to an 8x speed CD reader. My own branded CD's weren't readable on those old CD readers. Believe most 4x speed and lower CD readers don't support it.

Trying at least to keep it a little period correct by using only CD readers in my 368 and 486. Everything newer has a CD or DVD writer.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2022-07-12, 19:18:

One didn't even turn on, another has become slow as hell and clean the lens didn't help, even a third one an HL-DT-ST GSA-H22N has the quirks that is able to read dvd but not cd.

I have two LG BD-RE drives that read/write CDs and BDs just fine, but stopped being able to read DVDs. It's very strange.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2022-07-12, 19:18:

I noticed that most of the problem are due to the rubber belts, but it's weird. I kept them in a closed box and a safe environment.

It seems that when the drive is long time not in use, the belt dries out and stops working properly (sometimes even falls apart). It seems that using the drive somewhat regularly makes the belts last longer. In any case, they are not hard to replace if you have a supply.

Blu-Ray drives use different lasers then a DVD/CD drives so they probably have 2 different laser mechanisms.