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Old Mitsumi cd-rom

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First post, by Amigaz

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My crap 2x speed Mitsumi cd-rom just died in my recently aquired Acer Ambra 486 PC, it was attached to some ISA cd-rom controller card
Today I replaced it with a not so new DVD-ROM and booted up the PC but the DVD-ROM went nuts...it was like it was accessed contantly so I guess it's not compatible.
Do I need to gunt down a Mitsumi drive from circa 1993-94 now? 😳

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 1 of 9, by Kippesoep

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Many of the old CD-ROM drives, including that Mitsumi IIRC, were not actually IDE drives, even though they may have used the same connector. Try attaching the DVD drive directly to the motherboard (or to the EIDE controller which was probably a VLB card in a 486 PC).

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Reply 2 of 9, by Amigaz

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Kippesoep wrote:

Many of the old CD-ROM drives, including that Mitsumi IIRC, were not actually IDE drives, even though they may have used the same connector. Try attaching the DVD drive directly to the motherboard (or to the EIDE controller which was probably a VLB card in a 486 PC).

I bet it was, didn't even have a master/slave jumper 😜

Problem is that the harddrives (2 of them) are connected to the motherboard IDE controller, only have 3 ISA slots in this PC

Guess I have to find an ISA IDE controller?

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 6 of 9, by Amigaz

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5u3 wrote:
Amigaz wrote:

Guess I have to find an ISA IDE controller?

What about a Soundblaster 16 with IDE interface? Almost all models have one.

Drivers are needed for that, or?

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 7 of 9, by Zup

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For the sound part... no (at least in MS-DOS). In Windows, you'll need some drivers.

For the IDE bus... in DOS you will need a CD-ROM driver (OAKCDROM, for example) and MSCDEX, as usual (note that your SB16 will probably be configured as 3rd IDE). In Windows, it will be detected automatically.

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Reply 8 of 9, by Amigaz

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Zup wrote:

For the sound part... no (at least in MS-DOS). In Windows, you'll need some drivers.

For the IDE bus... in DOS you will need a CD-ROM driver (OAKCDROM, for example) and MSCDEX, as usual (note that your SB16 will probably be configured as 3rd IDE). In Windows, it will be detected automatically.

hmmm....sounds like a solution but then I have to put in a Soundblaster to live in harmony with my Gravis Ultrasound, hehe

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 9 of 9, by 5u3

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Amigaz wrote:

hmmm....sounds like a solution but then I have to put in a Soundblaster to live in harmony with my Gravis Ultrasound, hehe

As long it is not a GUS PnP (which comes with its own IDE interface btw.), this should be rather easy.

The interfaces included on common soundcards are very basic, though. They only support the slowest transfer modes, and the ISA interface doesn't allow for high transfer rates either, so don't expect more than ~16x speed reading from CD-ROMs (but you won't ever need more for 486 games anyways).

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