PowerCD Base Unit Teardown Pics . . .

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

. . . posted in their own thread as I thought that they might be of general interest.

Another comrade set off my "gotta know, gotta see what's goin' on" reaction in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=11701

As you can see, there's a whole lotta stuff inside the PowerCD's Base Unit. Including a Power Supply in the top section and what's likely a combination CD controller and definitely the SCSI Interface on a PCB in the bottom of this "simple" lil' unit!

8-o



I checked the pinouts for Apple's 25 pin bastardization of the SCSI spec and the pins w/ lines running from them should be the ground lines on the diagram. Anything color coded in orange is a strong link to ground. Anything color coded in pencil is a tenuous link to ground. This led me to believe there was a PCB inside the Power Unit. Lo and behold, there's one whole heck of a lot goin' on in there as stated above. Someone will need to use a M <-> F DB-25 adapter as shown above, or a hacked ribbon cable, to figure out what voltages are being fed to the CD "spinner" section over which lines. It'd probably be necessary to noodle out which lines are data and control lines for this low level CD spinner to the MLB interface. It sure ain't SCSI! I'm not convinced that the "spinner" section will even work as a CD player w/o the circuitry present in the base unit's MLB.



I never thought would have thought all that stuff would be packed into the "base unit" in a million years! :I

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I never thought would have thought all that stuff would be packed into the "base unit" in a million years! :I

That is just an insane amount of electronics in that base! I figured for sure it was just a power+datawire adapter. I figured it would just have a bunch of wire, maybe one small circuit board with one or two small power regulation chips.

Why the H#!! did the even bother making the back removable, if it is so absolutely/positively required for use? Maybe they were going to make a second smaller base? Maybe they were going to modify the SCSI ports on some Macs to interface directly with the 'spinner' unit, bypassing all normal interface standards? (AKA: Interface direct, not even via the SCSI protocol.)

Now that I think about it, that would have rocked for use with PowerBooks. Cable going directly from the micro-SCSI on the PB to the 'not-SCSI' DB-25 on the PowerCD, and have the PowerBook do all the actual 'drive control' directly (IWM-style) as well as supply power. That would have rocked!

 

[LCGuy]

I'd say that the reason behind making the base removable would be to make it easier to package it. I've never seen a PowerCD box, but I'd imagine that the base and player would have been separated for transport?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I'd say that the reason behind making the base removable would be to make it easier to package it. I've never seen a PowerCD box, but I'd imagine that the base and player would have been separated for transport?

The thing was so ridiculously expensive, I really doubt that was even a concern. They could have just made the 'spinner' unit a little bigger to fit those electronics; and the base a little smaller. I honestly cannot think of any reason that the product, as delivered, is built that way; short of planned uses that were never implemented.

The fact that, no matter what kind of custom cable you try to rig, it is completely useless without the base is just a staggeringly bad design. Other companies learned that lesson (IBM with the PS/1 that had the power supply in the monitor, or the even goofier Coleco Adam, which had the power supply in the printer of all places!) But Apple did it anyway. At least Apple only did it on a peripheral.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The fact that, no matter what kind of custom cable you try to rig, it is completely useless without the base is just a staggeringly bad design.

Actually, considering the PowerCD's capabilities, it wasn't such a bad design for its time. You've got to remember that

CD Technology was in its 1x infancy, as was Multi-Media for that matter.

I bought a re-furb PowerCD as a computer-less Multi-Media Display Platform for my business. Its capabilities were unparalleled for its time, AFAIK. It could run a Slide Show off the new PhotoCDs or VideoClip Presentations off the new VideoCDs! That'd be way too much electronics to put into the "spinner." just take a look at the size of that ASIC in the base unit and all the other chips-n-digital glue. Not too shabby, even for its price, IMHO.

I'll bet if you look through the pages of AppleDesign you might find some of FROG Design's whimsical Macs sporting a front door loading CD long before the advent of the TAM!

 

[H3NRY]

Philips had a small CD / Photo CD player which I think is the "flying saucer" part of the PowerCD, and the SCSI attachment & controller base were Apple's contribution to make it useful as a portable CDROM drive for PowerBooks, which is what it was mostly used for. I have a suspicion that it IS possible to power the top part from the DB25 and use it as a music player, and one day when the decks are clear of other projects, I may give it a shot. I have a garage full of "interesting projects" to get around to... )

 

[Bunsen]

I have a garage full of "interesting projects" to get around to... )

Welcome to the club!

 

[Anonymous Freak]

The fact that, no matter what kind of custom cable you try to rig, it is completely useless without the base is just a staggeringly bad design.

Actually, considering the PowerCD's capabilities, it wasn't such a bad design for its time. You've got to remember that

CD Technology was in its 1x infancy, as was Multi-Media for that matter.

I bought a re-furb PowerCD as a computer-less Multi-Media Display Platform for my business. Its capabilities were unparalleled for its time, AFAIK. It could run a Slide Show off the new PhotoCDs or VideoClip Presentations off the new VideoCDs! That'd be way too much electronics to put into the "spinner." just take a look at the size of that ASIC in the base unit and all the other chips-n-digital glue. Not too shabby, even for its price, IMHO.

I'll bet if you look through the pages of AppleDesign you might find some of FROG Design's whimsical Macs sporting a front door loading CD long before the advent of the TAM!

Interesting. I knew it could do PhotoCD, but had no idea it could do VideoCD. I may have to play with that when I find my PCD. The first Video iPod! (Well, video-out iPod, anyway.)

 

[tyrannis]

I'd say that the reason behind making the base removable would be to make it easier to package it. I've never seen a PowerCD box, but I'd imagine that the base and player would have been separated for transport?

The PowerCD is indeed separated from its base in the box. They used two styrofoam trays similar to present day packaging.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'd say that the reason behind making the base removable would be to make it easier to package it. I've never seen a PowerCD box, but I'd imagine that the base and player would have been separated for transport?

The PowerCD is indeed separated from its base in the box. They used two styrofoam trays similar to present day packaging.

Considering the generous amount of foam packing material and box sizes of most Apple products, I doubt that was the reason. There's gotta be a CPU of some sort in the base to support the "computer-less" multimedia presentation capabilities of the PowerCD. Dollars to donuts, they were planning to grace the face of some FROG DESIGN packaged Mac with the "spinner" when 2x, 4x, & 8x data x-fer rated CD-ROM drives rendered such an installation obsolete.

IMHO, of course.

 

[G.A.Pster]

Ok before I start applying power to it (starting at 2.5 volts and working my way up) and possibly create a true non-function paperweight. xx(

What’s the CD deck (for lack of a better name) worth, if I put it on ebay would it sell for more than .99 cents?

 

[H3NRY]

Try this: power +6V - 8V DC pin 1, ground pin 4,5,9,13 etc. Pin 1 shows continuity to the power + pin on my base. According to Apple tech notes, the original AC adapter was 8.8V DC. I've been using the 7.5V adapter for a Mac Portable. My unit has apparently become a "display only" since last time I dug it out. It doesn't work any more.