wtb: SCSI CD writer with caddy

[legacy]

It's so easy to find just about any software online that I never worried about it and never had any problems.

yeah, like this 

In theory companies don't care at all about someone downloading abandonware software these days, because it's only worth spending money on legal enforcement for software if it still has commercial value, otherwise, a company is paying for legal enforcement despite there being no possible financial gain for the company, and that's a waste.

There's a guy on eBay who's been selling SCSI disks with tons of IRIX software installed on them for at least the last 10 years, probably longer, and SGI never tried to squash people who were passing around the Hax Force licenses either.

However, in our directly bad experience with companies like Autodesk and Adobe, we know they are a different story, and during these days we have been threatened with legal action by a few private dudes out of this site, and the risk of them causing issue is real.

Yesterday the team discussed the possibility of sharing our archives with the policy of promising to promptly remove any software/links if a complaint is made is probably the right one, we asked an attorney who practices and studies law as our personal counselor and she showed some points where we the odds of being driven into troubles by some of the biggest jerks off the site.

We don't make money on this, and nobody likes to be sued for a hobby, so it is all tightened up: to drop this project completely and without reserve.

[Synthtech]

Which country are you in? Because I work with vintage synthesisers I have a lot of old SCSI optical drives, they come in handy as I regularly need to recover data for customers and to test 1980’s samplers. Some of them have caddies. I am not sure how many caddies I have as I don’t have to use that drive type often, the drawer type usually suffices unless it’s the Emulator II “Unverse of Sounds” disks that work in the rack mount custom drive that was sold back then but I think I have a couple of beige Yamaha drives that use caddies. I will need to check when I get to my workshop whether I have enough to spare one. I have had to keep working SCSI CD/DVD, Zip, Jaz, Syquest and magneto-optical drives available as bands sometimes turn-up wanting to recover their data from their old touring rigs when they decide to return to the spotlight.

[legacy]

Which country are you in?

Italy

I have had to keep working SCSI CD/DVD, Zip, Jaz, Syquest and magneto-optical drives available as bands sometimes turn-up wanting to recover their data from their old touring rigs when they decide to return to the spotlight.

yup, it's a problem nowadays.

What is your experience with magneto-optical drives?
are MO-drivers reliable?
are MO-medias reliable?

and what about DVD-ram's?

[Synthtech]

Which country are you in?

Italy

I have had to keep working SCSI CD/DVD, Zip, Jaz, Syquest and magneto-optical drives available as bands sometimes turn-up wanting to recover their data from their old touring rigs when they decide to return to the spotlight.

yup, it's a problem nowadays.

What is your experience with magneto-optical drives?
are MO-drivers reliable?
are MO-medias reliable?

and what about DVD-ram's?

It’s been a long time since I used DVD RAM, it was a versatile format compared to DVD-RW. MO drives and media have held out well enough, I don’t know about drivers though as I use them with samplers from the same era so I don’t attempt to use them with computers. Mostly these days the jobs that I have are along the lines of getting the data off old drives and onto new CD or DVD media for archiving and also putting it onto SCSI SD card drives. Also with regards the CD/DVD caddies there were the more common version with the sliding shutter and the version with no shutter. Which are to looking for?

As for Syquests it’s touch-and-go, they are really grumpy by now and the less we talk about Zip and Jaz drives the better.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Vintage! Rare! I have this CD reader with caddy (maybe with caddies):

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

As for Syquests it’s touch-and-go, they are really grumpy by now and the less we talk about Zip and Jaz drives the better.

Jeez, I saved all those in the dustbin, a long, long time ago.

[legacy]

I am interested in the structure and electrical properties of the Ge2Sb2Te5-based thin film used in DVD-ram disks to permanently retain the information: what I haven't understood yet is the stability of this solution, in term of reliability.

MO's uses a completely different technology.

Prices are also completely different:
- SCSI DVD-RAM brand new unit, listed for 150-200 euro, cartridges (disk + caddy), are qty=5 for 20 euro
- SCSI MO 9.1GB brand new unit, listed for 500-600 euro, MO r/w disks of 4.5Gbyte are 50 euro each

Also with regards the CD/DVD caddies there were the more common version with the sliding shutter and the version with no shutter. Which are to looking for?

I am looking for the easiest mechanical solution ever: without shutter: you put the CD into the caddy, and you put the caddy into the CDRW unit.

[legacy]

Vintage! Rare! I have this CD reader with caddy (ies?):

yeah, this one, with caddy

but I need a writable unit, in order to run my experiments on chalcogenide film materials used for laser optical memory effect. The idea was discovered in 1968, even if it was implemented several years later. Anyway the "laser memory" of CDs is the easiest implementation of the "ovonic memory"; DVDs add more complexity and even the theory is more complex.

[bob225]

Well I did post some information on the first page - seemingly it was over looked

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

@bob225: I don't think Apple ever made a CD writer with caddy.

[bob225]

It was a rare option in some countries the oem is Sony - Sony made some scsi cd-r (caddy) drives around the same period - just following breadcrumbs from old memories


tbh I remember putting this sort of stuff in the skip in the early 2000's along with bbc micros/masters it was just junk back then

[james_s]

Are we sure caddy type CD burners were even made? I've been digging in my memory and I'm pretty sure the earliest burners I remember seeing were tray types. I've had several caddy style readers but I don't think I've ever had a burner. It seems likely they did exist but I'm not personally aware of any and they certainly were not common.

Maybe look at archives of magazines like Byte and Macworld from the mid 90s? There seems to be surprisingly little info out there on this specific topic.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Are we sure caddy type CD burners were even made?

Yes, it seems:

The following models are known to use the caddy-loading mechanism

• Yamaha CDR102
• Plextor PX-R412Ci

[legacy]

I can 100% confirm that Yamaha CDR102 is a CD writer with caddy because I happened to use it during my university course. I can't confirm the Plextor model, never seen/used in person, I have only read on the internet during a research.

[bob225]

As per my previous post, Sony CDU921S, Sony CDU526R, Logitec LCW-7408/M


Sony CDU948S is the bare drive

Manual.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/158812/Sony-Cdu948s.html?page=4#manual

Edit. Found a Plextor - https://www.amazon.com/CD-R-DRIVE-PLEXWRITER-PLEXTOR-PX-R412Ci/dp/B00B872ZTS

[dexters_lab]

i remember using cd caddies with burners, i had one when i had my SGI Indy, they seemed to be more prevalent on the CD-R drives with trays on the read only drives. I also used one a lot where i used to work.

anyway, i don't have any of the caddy drives myself now but i can keep an eye out in a couple of places, one might turn up.

If you are desperate you could email Ian at SGI Depot and see if he has a spare drive: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgi.html There would have been plenty supplied with many of the SGI systems as i am sure you know.

As for pricing and selling stuff on ebay you do have to expect low offers, especially on unusual items. You have to realise when your selling something old/unusual/rare you will have a tiny market to sell to... there could only be one or two people in the world looking for that item when your selling it, and it's those buyers who will determine the price your item will sell at. This is regardless of how much time and effort you have put into it or how much you think it's worth.

and to answer this question by Legacy:

What is your experience with magneto-optical drives?
are MO-drivers reliable?
are MO-medias reliable?

IME MO drives and media are extremely reliable, i have 2.6gb and 5.2gb MO drives here made by Sony and they always work, even with media written 20+ years ago. The recording method means they are very insensitive to their environment. Requiring two things to be true to alter the contents (heat and a magnetic field).

[legacy]

Ian at SGI Depot

Thanks for the hint, but I don't want to have anything to deal with such a person.

[legacy]

This is regardless of how much time and effort you have put into it or how much you think it's worth.

Mainly *yes*, but this concept doesn't apply to vintage cars and motorcycles. I have been doing business for 12 years in vintage motors, and I can assure this marketplace is completely different due to the psychology of customers, e.g. they are happy to pay for fresh paint, and for cleaned metal, as well as for a restored saddle of the motorbike, whereas on vintage computers ... people don't want to pay a penny for such a service, they prefer pickup junk.

It is my second core business since I have a genetic disease on my eyes, that reduces the amount of time I can spend on a screen, consequently, my main core business as computer science consultant is a part-time business, not enough to pay the food, the rent, etc. Thus, when I am not paid to travel (for remote customers assistance), I do the restoration, and I sell stuff for the fairest price possible, that implies a decent gain.

As for pricing and selling stuff on ebay you do have to expect low offers, especially on unusual items

The best business I saw on the vintage computer was an auction with a super rare Commodore C65, offered in perfect conditions: the auction ended with 85.000 Euro

(for me, it was a shock)

[dexters_lab]

Mainly *yes*, but this concept doesn't apply to vintage cars and motorcycles. I have been doing business for 12 years in vintage motors, and I can assure this marketplace is completely different due to the psychology of customers, e.g. they are happy to pay for fresh paint, and for cleaned metal, as well as for a restored saddle of the motorbike, whereas on vintage computers ... people don't want to pay a penny for such a service, they prefer pickup junk.

well i do know a bit about the automotive world being a bit of a petrolhead myself and have owned vintage (30 year) old collectable cars. It's a very different market, there are far more people out there with an interest in vintage cars than vintage computers, it's a bigger marketplace and it's very easy for a collector to enjoy their cars on the roads of today which can't be said for vintage computers.

This in a way makes me think of my DPB-7001 quantel paintbox (video painting system) i have been slowly trying to get working for the last couple of years, it's unbelievably rare, was crazy expensive when it was new, changed the way tv looked, it's historically important (IMO!) and only a few were privileged enough to use one in the 1980s... sounds like it should be worth a fortune? No, it won't be worth much at all when it's restored because hardly anyone knows they even exist. Sometimes we have to do something as a personal goal and expect nothing in return.

I would say if you want something to restore and potentially make money from i'd head towards restoring vintage video games, consoles, arcades and maybe more popular computers from the likes of atari and commodore the vintage and retro gaming scene is growing fast

[legacy]

restoring vintage video games, consoles

Yup, four months ago, I did a bit of money by restoring a few NeoGeo cabinets (Motorola m68k driven), those used in video games' rooms

Enough money to repay the costs, the petrol to bring parts home, to pay for the paint and glue used to restore the wood, and the purchase of an original CRT plus my time to repair the video circuit board, to clean up and refurbish the motherboard by replacing capacitors and this stuff; I even restored the coins box, and It ended with a decent gain to pay for the rent and for food shopping for half the month.

Shipped to a gentleman in Piccadilly Circus, London, UK. I have never seen again a customer like him: he paid in advance a third of the money for services, he didn't complain about the wooden crates used to safely ship the NeoGeo-cabinets, not even if wooden crates add more shipping costs than a common parcel with a lower probability of damages during shipping. It was ok for him, and he promptly paid the rest the next day he received the goods via bank money transfer. This saved me to pay Paypal's commision (6% of the value).

WOW! It was the best deal ever 

Whereas ... with vintage computers on eBay... I usually receive requests for low-cost shipping methods, whose carriers must be cheaper than UPS and FedEx, and with PayPal I am responsible for everything, including a damages that only happen due to a poor shipping service, and thanks to the new Paypal's policy, in these case you have to refund the payment + all the S/H cost, thus, in order to avoid to end with a strong negative gain, I have already subscribed a commercial insurance with a credit company, whose commision is the 10% of the insured value.


Reasons why I can't accept 50 euro for a workstation. But probably I will retire the whole business of refurbished UNIX Workstations from eBay, and I will only offer vintage consoles.

Anyway, I have recently opened this website, and I am working in my free time on a new enhanced version, that will look like a mini version of eBay, except we don't charge costs or commission on trades,  neither we take money from advertising services 

[David Hess]

Just for kicks, I checked and my tray loading IDE DVD-RAM drive which uses a caddy is a Hitachi GF-2000.

Now that I think of it, my first CD writer was a slot loading Ricoh which used a caddy also.

[Astrodev]

Just been for a look as I know I have some Yamaha CDR102's somewhere as I swapped them for caddyless SCSI versions of the Yamaha drives for ease of use.


I am in the midst of sorting through stuff so do you want me to let you know if I find one (they should be fully operational as they were working when replaced)

[james_s]

Not all of the vintage car market is like that. I'm a huge fan of vintage (70s-80s) European cars and for the most part those are worth squat. I have far more invested in my Volvo turbo wagon than I could ever hope to sell it for, but that's ok because I absolutely love that car and would never think of selling it. Cars are a different market overall than vintage tech though, they have a *vastly* wider appeal. I would bet the number of people interested in classic cars probably outnumbers the people interested in vintage computers by 10,000:1 or more. Drive up in a restored '57 Chevy and you're going to attract a crowd, even amongst people with no particular interest in cars. Get out your Altair or Commodore 64 and if there are any hardcore geeks or tech hipsters around you'll get their attention, but you're not gonna draw a crowd.

[legacy]

I am in the midst of sorting through stuff so do you want me to let you know if I find one (they should be fully operational as they were working when replaced)

so kind, thanks 

[legacy]

Not all of the vintage car market is like that

yup, but Ford Racing is the best for that