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[SOLVED] CD Audio cable question

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First post, by Errius

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Hello, I have a Plextor SCSI CD-ROM drive which I want to use in a DOS build. However it uses an unusual CD audio connector I haven't seen before. Imagine a rectangle with two clipped edges on one side. Four pins. Does this connector have a name? How do I connect it to my SoundBlaster?

eta: pictures added

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ETA2: Better pictures. I cannot physically get at my drive to photograph it right now, but it looks like this:

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This model also exists with white bezel. I will add pictures of the 50-pin model at the bottom of the thread.

Last edited by Errius on 2021-08-16, 01:18. Edited 7 times in total.

"This all reminds me when i took the windows vista sticker thingy off my old laptop, and on my washing machine as a joke. A few days later said washing machine stopped working. I still think this cannot be a coincidence."

Reply 1 of 7, by konc

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A picture would help but I'm guessing it's the standard cd audio output, just with a slightly different connector on the cdrom side. Can't you plug in a standard cd audio cable? If you can it should work. Some of them were completely flat without the clip, maybe one of those fit?
cd_rom_audio_lead_black_black.JPG

Reply 2 of 7, by KT7AGuy

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He might mean one of these?

CABLE-266_cd_rom_cable.JPG

Although, I've only ever seen those connectors on the sound card, not the drive

Reply 3 of 7, by PhilsComputerLab

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For stuff like this a picture says more than 1000 words 😀

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Reply 4 of 7, by Tetrium

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KT7AGuy wrote:
He might mean one of these? […]
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He might mean one of these?

CABLE-266_cd_rom_cable.JPG

Although, I've only ever seen those connectors on the sound card, not the drive

If the spacing of either plug are similar, he could get away with a standard plug as long as the wires are correctly pin-outed

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Reply 5 of 7, by Errius

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I found out that the CD audio connector needed by this drive is proprietary to Panasonic:

"This all reminds me when i took the windows vista sticker thingy off my old laptop, and on my washing machine as a joke. A few days later said washing machine stopped working. I still think this cannot be a coincidence."

Reply 6 of 7, by Errius

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The model of the drive is Plextor PX-20TSi

I got hold of the appropriate cable and installed the drive in a DOS 6.22/Windows NT 4.0 machine with a Sound Blaster AWE64 audio card. However I still cannot get CD audio to work in DOS.

It works fine in Windows NT so it's not a problem with the cable.

The drive is fully functional in DOS apart from CD audio. The CD Player for DOS 2.25e program (CDP.ZIP) reports error #3 ("unknown command") when an attempt is made to play an audio CD.

Does anyone know what the problem could be?

ETA more information: This is the PX-20TSi model with the 68-pin connector not the 50-pin connector. (There are at least two versions of this drive.) It's connected to the computer's integrated AIC-7880 SCSI controller.

ETA2: Here are pictures of the 50-pin model. Note that the bezel is different. The CD audio connector is also different.

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ETA3: Here is the manual for the 50-pin model: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/plexto … nual_199702.pdf

Take care that the document hosted on manualzz.com and manualslib.com is incomplete. It only contains 20 numbered pages. The full manual has 80.

Last edited by Errius on 2021-08-16, 10:11. Edited 2 times in total.

"This all reminds me when i took the windows vista sticker thingy off my old laptop, and on my washing machine as a joke. A few days later said washing machine stopped working. I still think this cannot be a coincidence."

Reply 7 of 7, by Horun

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Sorry you are correct, that is an OEM model only sold to IBM and never for retail sale by Plextor. Not sure why they removed the dual buttons and dual LED's from front panel for IBM but you are correct and that front panel makes it look like cheap cdrom compared to a retail Plextor. Internally will still be a PX-20TSi which was never designed for Wide or Ultra speeds like the UltraMax wide or UltraPlex versions. Thanks !

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

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