From: baseball@catch-the-fever.scd.ucar.edu (Gregg Walters)
Subject: Re: SBPro+CD ROM??
Organization: Scientific Computing Divison/NCAR Boulder, CO
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 18:29:14 GMT

In Article: 5539 of comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,
belas@comb1.comb.umd.edu (BOB AT COMB) inquired >>

>>         Has anyone hooked up an external CD ROM to the Soundblaster Pro?
>> The manual says that only Mashushita (sp) drives are compatible with the
>> direct connnection to the SBPro.  Are these good drives with fast access
>> times?  If I buy another CD ROM drive with a separate controller card will
>> there likely be any incompatibility problems with the SBPro?  I'd greatly
>> appreciate hearing about anyone else's experience with such a setup, thanks.

Well here's the story behind my setup.

Three months ago I got a SBPro 2.0 Basic under the assumption that I could get
a compatible external CD-ROM drive.  WRONG...ALMOST  CompUSA (Denver) told me
Saturday that Creative Labs has discontinued the external drive.  CompUSA
suggested I buy a complete multi-media kit (two by MediaVision, one was
the Fusion CD16 for $1099 and the other a Media Vision with a multi-spin CD-ROM
drive for $1199) which is just too much for me.

I tried the cheesy $399 Fusion CD (MediaVision) multi-media kit.  The card
and the CD-ROM interface card must be mounted physically parallel in adjacent
slots.  That's because you have to connect the two with a 5-line ribbon cable
that is an astonishing 4 inches long.  16 inches would let me put the interface
card in an unused 8-bit slot.  In my box that meant taking 2 of 3 16-bit slots
and I was already using two.  I jury-rigged an open-case setup just to test it,
and I thought the sound was SH*T.  When I returned the kit to the dealer they
tried to tell me I could get a longer cable - 12 inches.  Enough already ...

Then I found a NEC CDR-36 CD-ROM drive at Bizmart for $499.  It came with a SCSI
interface card (8-bit slot), a headphone jack, Grolier's Encyclopedia, and two
other reference type CDs.  When I set things up, on a hunch I decided to run a
line from the headphone jack to the SBPro line in.  HEY! It works.  THIS IS NOT
DOCUMENTED IN THE KIT'S MANUALS.  I get the soundbites from the Grolier's, and
I can play music CDs - even while system sounds, or the SBPro Dr. SBaitso
applet are running.  I am presently trying to run the MS-Cinemania CD on the
this.  I got read errors installing it the first time.  I have yet to get the
Beethoven demo or the Cinemania Overview to run to completion without crashing
with a "System Error - Unable to Read from Drive [cd] - Cancel / Retry".  I'm
inclined to believe that the CD is defective, not my CD-ROM drive.  That's
because 6 other CDs work fine, including 2 multi-media CDs.

Anyway, the SCSI interface has 2 SCSI ports one external (with my line to the
CD-ROM drive) and one internal.  I'm not sure if the both can be used simultaneously,
but the documentation does say that you can daisy chain your peripherals on this
thing - just need to setup unique IRQs for each device, etc.

 

Gregg            \\                                    //
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