From: sthiagar@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (sivasailam thiagarajan)
Subject: SUMMARY: OS/2+ISA+CD-ROM = ? (LONG)
Organization: Indiana University
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:57:27 GMT

I asked the net about using CD-ROM under ISA and OS/2. I wanted to
know about drives that you could use under OS/2, DOS boxes, and
WinOS/2.  I got five responses, and thanks to all who responded.

Here's *my* take on the responses; any and all corrections are welcome.

One thing that I hadn't realized is that you need a driver for your
SCSI adapter in addition to your CD-ROM drive. Trantor has drivers for
OS/2; the Trantor T128 SCSI adapter works well and plugs into an 8-bit
slot. Adaptec (model 1542 and/or 1542B) and Future Domain controllers
have drivers that come with OS/2 2.0 itself.

Once you have a working SCSI adapter and driver, you can get a SCSI
CD-ROM drive. IBM's (does anyone know the model number?) is fully
supported, not surprisingly. What *I* hand't known is that the Toshiba
3301 (and 3301B) are *also* fully supported, because they're the same
as the drive that IBM sells!

The SONY CDU-541 and NEC CDR-84 internal work well, with "minor
patches." (In the case of the NEC, this means patching cdrom.sys so as
to replace "TOSHIBA" with "NEC    "; I suspect you'd do the analogous
thing with the SONY CDU-541.)

Finally, one person mentioned that you can use the SONY CDU
531/535/7205/Laser Library "but [it] is only accessible for a
specially made DOS window." (I assume this means creating a DOS image
for this driver.) Personally, I *wouldn't* want to use a drive with
this limitation, but I mention it here for anyone who's wondering.

Again, thanks to my correspondents. I've attached their responses in
full (minus my query) after my signature.

Raja Thiagarajan
(sthiagar@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu)

------
From pjb3@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu Fri Aug  7 10:00:19 1992
From: Paul J Bodin <pjb3@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu>

Raja:

I am happily using a Toshiba 3301 drive with the standard Future
Domain 8-bit controller under OS/2.  Most SCSI drives will probably
work, but the Toshiba and IBM drives (actually the same drive) are
supported directly by IBM and are guaranteed to work.  The Toshiba is
a true SCSI II design, and will work with most of the big name SCSI
controllers (my dealer offers the Adaptec 1542B as a "premium" option
with the drive).

___________________________________________________________________________
Paul J. Bodin                         Internet: pjb3@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
Union Theological Seminary               smail: 435-52nd Street
(718) 439-3549                                  Brooklyn, NY 11220

From iidan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Mon Aug 10 09:20:31 1992
From: iidan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Daniel Rogers)

I have a Toshiba 3301B internal CD-ROM drive. My interface is a Trantor T128
SCSI adapter that can plug into an 8-bit slot. It comes with drivers for Dos
and Trantor has drivers for OS/2. OS/2 fully supports the Toshiba, which is
MPC compatible as well. Being able to access everything under OS/2, OS/2 Dos
sessions, regular Dos, and Win-OS/2 is very handy. I have had no problems so
far, with the exception of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, but I think
that was a bad disk anyway. This is one of the few setups guaranteed to work.
Note you can also have a Future Domain or Adaptec SCSI adapter, because OS/2
has drivers for these right out of the box.
Well, hope this helps some. Other drives and adapter cards take some work to
make them OS/2 compatible, but I've had no problems so far with my setup.


-- 
=====================================================
Daniel Rogers                iidan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
The University of Texas at Austin
=====================================================

From rafetmad@cheshire.oxy.edu Sat Aug  8 00:30:55 1992
From: rafetmad@cheshire.oxy.edu (David Giller)

I am using OS/2 2.0 on an AMI EISA (not ISA, but pretty close).

I have an Adaptec 1740 running in emulation of a 1542, and a SONY
CDU-541 CD-ROM drive.

My understanding is that the 1542, an ISA SCSI controller, works quite
well under OS/2, and with minor patches (which I can detail to you,
they really are minor) to the supplied CDROM.SYS driver with OS/2,
I can get everything working just fine.

Note however that in order to get the 1542 with CD-ROM working under
DOS, you have to pay Adaptec for their CD-ROM kit, which I think is
around $75 more, the street thieves.

-Dave
-- 
David Giller, Box 134 | Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light
Occidental College    | bulb?  A: Three.  One to replace the bulb, and two to
1600 Campus Road      | fend off all the Californians trying to share the
Los Angeles, CA 90041 | experience. ---------------------------rafetmad@oxy.edu

From jtroy%dvss.uucp@udel.edu Sat Aug  8 03:08:41 1992
From: Jay Troy <dvss!jtroy@udel.edu>

The Sony CDU 541 (SCSI CDROM) works great under OS/2 (from everywhere).

The Sony CDU 531/535/7205/Laser Library also works great with OS/2, but
    is only accessible for a specially made DOS window.


 Jay Troy        Delaware Valley Solution Systems, Inc.
                 Computing Solutions for Business and Industry
                 P.O. Box 190 // Claymont, DE 19703 // (302)798-DVSS
                 Internet: ...!udel.edu!dvss!jtroy (jtroy@dvss.UUCP)
--

From rommel@informatik.tu-muenchen.de Fri Aug  7 12:48:18 1992
From: Kai-Uwe Rommel <rommel@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>

However, I use it as a data medium only, I have no idea if it works with
Windows Multimedia extensions in a Win-OS/2 session.

Kai Uwe Rommel

/* Kai Uwe Rommel --- rommel@informatik.tu-muenchen.de */

DOS ... is still a real mode only non-reentrant interrupt
handler, and always will be.                -Russell Williams