Why do you want the oldest? ' Period correct CD-burning?

You could try ImgBurn. IIRC that hasn't regressed Win9x and doesn't have a silly MHz requirement

The older the software, the lighter it is and plus I want to burn at the slowest speeds possible like 2x or 4x to have full compatibility with my other PCs.

Then you need old blank CD-R too.

I found out that a newer CD-Burner and 52x Speed CD-R , burned at 16x Speed are much more readable than burned at 2x Speed with old Drives.

CDRWIN,Corel Easy CD Creator were what I used back in the day or diskjuggler (popular for Dreamcast CDs). You will need an old SCSI or early IDE burner that is supported. My first burner was a 2x HP (they had it recalled) for something like $1100 at BestBuy so I was an early adopter.

Goldenhawk CDRWIN was my favourite in conjunction with a 2x Panasonic burner and Verbatim Metal AZO discs... those were the days 😎

http://web.archive.org/web/20000301031231/htt … goldenhawk.com/

How about Nero 5?

I used Easy CD Creator version 4.02 back in the day as this came bundled with my Memorex Twelve Maxx 1032 CD-R/RW drive (which is actually just a Liteon drive).
I still have this drive and am currently using it in my AMD 486DX4-100 PC running Windows 95 with 16MB RAM.
However, I'm now using Easy CD Creator 5.3 Basic (with the patches installed) which runs quite well on my 486 PC (provided I use it for basic CD burning tasks).
Only problem is that you sometimes need to set your screen resolution at at least 800x600 to fit everything onto the screen.

If you are looking at runnning your CD/DVD burning software on a 200 MHz to 500 MHz system, then you can actually try out Easy CD & DVD Creator version 6.0 (version 6.20 if you install the updates).
It was (back in the day) one of my favourite CD/DVD burning software, was very "easy" to use and didn't take up that much resources.

imgburn ftw

Last tested v2.5.8.0 on Windows 95. and the installer is 4meg

If late-90s, the Roxio/Adaptec stuff works well. Used it a bit on a P3 500.

computergeek92 wrote:

They range 200-500MHz Pentium/Celeron/K6-2 with up to 256MB ram each that I want to make dedicated cd burners using Windows 98 or 2000 and the earliest cd-rw drives.

It seems odd to consider burning so many CDs these days. Are you aware that there are USB mass storage drivers for DOS that work on some motherboards?

I tried some old versions of Nero Burning Rom, but the oldest version to recognize my ISO files is ver 5.5 from 2001-2003.

This seems odd too. How did you make your ISO files, and what happens when you open them in an older version of Nero? I'm pretty sure I used Nero 5 back in the day; it might be easier trying to find some way to persuade it to open your ISO files rather than looking for something else.

I think I also used CDBurnerXP back then. (I can't recall the version number.)

computergeek92 wrote:

plus I want to burn at the slowest speeds possible like 2x or 4x to have full compatibility with my other PCs.

Do you have some indication that burning them at faster speed will render them incompatible? Personally I only tend to favor slower speeds mostly because I'm not usually in any hurry and am paranoid about wasting discs.

computergeek92 wrote:

I want to re-purpose some of my older computers I don't game on. They range 200-500MHz Pentium/Celeron/K6-2 with up to 256MB ram each that I want to make dedicated cd burners using Windows 98 or 2000 and the earliest cd-rw drives. I tried some old versions of Nero Burning Rom, but the oldest version to recognize my ISO files is ver 5.5 from 2001-2003. The manual states it needs at least 500mhz to work - so now I'm looking for advice on even lighter software. Which are the oldest, most compatible, and lightest to recommend? (listed by actual version number)

WHY?

network cards are stupid cheap. Drop the files from an old machine to a new one and burn it there.

Sammy wrote:

Then you need old blank CD-R too.

I found out that a newer CD-Burner and 52x Speed CD-R , burned at 16x Speed are much more readable than burned at 2x Speed with old Drives.

Its not too hard to find vintage blank CDs on Ebay and also I've burned brand new Fred Meyer Memorex CD-R disks and they burn just fine with my 2001 Pioneer DVD/RW drive at 4X speed.
(Actually is the first ever DVD/RW drive! I found it on Pioneer's old site with a Google search and then bought it on Ebay in hopes of burning at 1X DVD)

F2bnp wrote:

How about Nero 5?

Tried that, It won't read my ISOs I downloaded off the internet or my own created ISOs. I've used my Nero 5.5 for years and it worked great on my faster PCs, like my Pentium 4s.

DosFreak wrote:

imgburn ftw

Last tested v2.5.8.0 on Windows 95. and the installer is 4meg

How much CPU and RAM usage did you notice? What are the hardware specs of the Windows 95 PC you tried it on?

Jorpho wrote:

It seems odd to consider burning so many CDs these days. Are you aware that there are USB mass storage drivers for DOS that wor […]
Show full quote

computergeek92 wrote:

They range 200-500MHz Pentium/Celeron/K6-2 with up to 256MB ram each that I want to make dedicated cd burners using Windows 98 or 2000 and the earliest cd-rw drives.

It seems odd to consider burning so many CDs these days. Are you aware that there are USB mass storage drivers for DOS that work on some motherboards?

I tried some old versions of Nero Burning Rom, but the oldest version to recognize my ISO files is ver 5.5 from 2001-2003.

This seems odd too. How did you make your ISO files, and what happens when you open them in an older version of Nero? I'm pretty sure I used Nero 5 back in the day; it might be easier trying to find some way to persuade it to open your ISO files rather than looking for something else.

I think I also used CDBurnerXP back then. (I can't recall the version number.)

computergeek92 wrote:

plus I want to burn at the slowest speeds possible like 2x or 4x to have full compatibility with my other PCs.

Do you have some indication that burning them at faster speed will render them incompatible? Personally I only tend to favor slower speeds mostly because I'm not usually in any hurry and am paranoid about wasting discs.

1st quote reply: I'm old school man... old school! I practically live in the 90's world galore! Not a flatscreen in sight! The CRTs took over! VHS tapes all over the place! And nothing but beige, beige, and more beige! 😁
Plus, some of the systems I work on are too old to have USB anyway. (Imagine a complete ISA system) They can't boot usb drives either.

2nd quote reply: I don't know, Its hard to find documentation for old Neros or figure out how to make it read the ISOs. On the Nero 5 opener window the ISOs show up under "all files" Nero 5 does not list "ISO" in their drop down menu, therefore it does not read the ISO file. I don't know much about old software, as I was just a kid in the 90's.

3rd quote reply: I found out myself from testing - that for example, if you have a 6x CD-ROM drive you need to burn at a speed at 6X or lower for the drive to actually read the disk. Older drives cannot read disks burned at speeds faster than their own drive speed. This is true.

luckybob wrote:

computergeek92 wrote:

I want to re-purpose some of my older computers I don't game on. They range 200-500MHz Pentium/Celeron/K6-2 with up to 256MB ram each that I want to make dedicated cd burners using Windows 98 or 2000 and the earliest cd-rw drives. I tried some old versions of Nero Burning Rom, but the oldest version to recognize my ISO files is ver 5.5 from 2001-2003. The manual states it needs at least 500mhz to work - so now I'm looking for advice on even lighter software. Which are the oldest, most compatible, and lightest to recommend? (listed by actual version number)

WHY?

network cards are stupid cheap. Drop the files from an old machine to a new one and burn it there.

I know, but I use USB, Zip Drives, and PCMCIA compact flash adapters and they all work fine for transfers. If I have all this old hardware I might as well use it. Also it is fun to play the "How low can you go" game when assigning tasks for older and older systems.

I tend to burn CDs with all the drivers for a system (mostly win9x era notebooks and desktops) for ease of setup since USB and Ethernet ports won't work without drivers. Most of that burning is done on much newer machines or from my server with all the driver files on it.

Still I have a bunch of older external burners for very old systems (68k macs for example) just like I keep old SyQuest, DAT, Bernouli, ZIP, Jazz, etc drives around. They come in handy sometimes.

computergeek92 wrote:

2nd quote reply: I don't know, Its hard to find documentation for old Neros or figure out how to make it read the ISOs. On the Nero 5 opener window the ISOs show up under "all files" Nero 5 does not list "ISO" in their drop down menu, therefore it does not read the ISO file. I don't know much about old software, as I was just a kid in the 90's.

Perhaps it would be useful to explore this problem. What if you just rename the .iso file to .nrg?

3rd quote reply: I found out myself from testing - that for example, if you have a 6x CD-ROM drive you need to burn at a speed at 6X or lower for the drive to actually read the disk. Older drives cannot read disks burned at speeds faster than their own drive speed. This is true.

I'm kind of skeptical about this. You're suggesting that any old CD player (which by definition reads at 1x) can only read media burned at 1x?

Anyway, a bit of digging suggests the other freeware program I used way back in the day was "burnatonce", formerly located at burnatonce.com . Not sure where you can find a copy at the moment.

Jorpho wrote:

Perhaps it would be useful to explore this problem. What if you just rename the .iso file to .nrg? […]
Show full quote

computergeek92 wrote:

2nd quote reply: I don't know, Its hard to find documentation for old Neros or figure out how to make it read the ISOs. On the Nero 5 opener window the ISOs show up under "all files" Nero 5 does not list "ISO" in their drop down menu, therefore it does not read the ISO file. I don't know much about old software, as I was just a kid in the 90's.

Perhaps it would be useful to explore this problem. What if you just rename the .iso file to .nrg?

3rd quote reply: I found out myself from testing - that for example, if you have a 6x CD-ROM drive you need to burn at a speed at 6X or lower for the drive to actually read the disk. Older drives cannot read disks burned at speeds faster than their own drive speed. This is true.

I'm kind of skeptical about this. You're suggesting that any old CD player (which by definition reads at 1x) can only read media burned at 1x?

1st: I'll try that one of these days.

2nd: Probably so. The oldest cd drives I have that are working are both 4x Cd-roms. I know they don't read my disks burned at higher speeds, but sometimes they read store bought game disks requiring lets say 8x or faster drives.
When I tried watching newer DVDs on my older slow PC DVD drives from 1999-2003 they won't read or they will play for a while then the dvd software would crash. (I'm using VLC media player)

Mitsumi 4X's are a nostalgic pain in the ass, even for '94 standards (they're the FX5200 256mb of CD-ROM drives). Just replace them with something newer from the turn of the millenium and forget about it

I remember using FireBurner and CDRwin back then, fireburner most of the times...
If imgburn is working though, I don't see why one should search for something else 😉

leileilol wrote:

Mitsumi 4X's are a nostalgic pain in the ass, even for '94 standards (they're the FX5200 256mb of CD-ROM drives). Just replace them with something newer from the turn of the millenium and forget about it

pfffft, it's all about the 128mb fx5200's 😉 just kidding, I would rather use a Geforce 4 mx than a fx5200. On topic I really do not see the desire to use old slow cd-rom drives when newer ones are so plentiful. Unless it is like your first pc and the original drive of course.

I suspect that old drives designed specifically for burning CDRs might make better quality results than a DVD burner. Assuming the drive in question were a good quality unit in good condition, anyway.
I've occasionally thought about putting a few optical drives in an old box just for burning and running quality tests on discs. For CD burning I'd probably use a Plextor SCSI CDRW drive. For testing, there are some particular drive models that the people at cdfreaks.. I mean myce.com.. say are good for quality testing.
But I don't burn many optical discs anymore, so I'm not sure I'll ever really put the machine together. At minimum, the subject will forever have a place as it relates to disc based games though.

I don't know about the full version, but I used to run Nero Express 5.5 on Windows 2000 using a Xeon 450MHz/512KB machine. It's really just a P2 450MHz with full speed (still off-die) cache, which only speeds it up slightly. I'm not even sure it would match a 500MHz Katmai. I never noticed any concern about the CPU speed, I think that speed requirement is probably nonsense.
I'd try Nero 5.5 on your Pentiums and see what happens. Usually the only thing that screws up disc burning is bad I/O, typically because of multitasking the hard drive during a burn or because DMA doesn't work. Pick a board that you think has good I/O and see how it handles.