Third party external SCSI CD-ROMs?

[agent_js03]

I'd like to get an external SCSI CD-ROM for my LC III, but most of the apple brand ones on eBay are way overpriced. I am wondering if it is possible to use third-party external CD-ROM with older macs (system 7). If so do you need special drivers for them or do they work out of the box?

 

[Compgeke]

Yup and yup. You'll need something like CD-ROM Toolkit or one of the gazillion other drivers for CDs on System 7. I believe 8 is what allowed third party CDs to work right.

 

[olePigeon]

You can use most 3rd party SCSI CD-ROMs with the right extensions, but you won't be able to boot from it unless it's been made that way (such as an original Apple, FWB, or a LaCie CD-ROM.)  But if you just need one to load CDs onto your machine, then most will work.

 

[Unknown_K]

FWB and Lacie just used 3rd party CDROM drives.

http://www.jagshouse.com/68kfaq.html#Q2.3.5

"2.3.5 - Can I use a non-Apple CD-ROM drive with my Mac?

Sure can. However, if you have a Mac (or System version) that won't work with the Apple 5.3.1 drivers, you'll probably have to use a third-party driver (such as Intech's SpeedTools or FWB CD-ROM Toolkit) with it. There's a page on MacMad (dead as of May '02) that has lots of helpful CD-ROM information that you might want to check out too. If you're using System 7.5 or higher, you can use the 5.3.1 driver, available from the JMUG Driver Museum, or you can use the ResExcellence hack on v5.4.2 of the driver (extractable from the Mac OS 8.1 Update). (The ResExcellence hack also works on higher versions.)

Most non-Apple CD-ROM drives are bootable, despite what Apple may claim. As long as they're SCSI drives, simply hold cmd-opt-shift-delete immediately after startup and as long as there's a bootable CD in the drive and there isn't another bootable drive on the SCSI bus (other than your normal boot drive), it will boot from the CD-ROM. The Apple-ROMed drives (generally Matsushita/Panasonic or Sony mechanisms) simply allow you to boot using the "C" key on startup. The C key trick does not, as is commonly thought, require a Mac that originally shipped with a CD-ROM drive; the Color Classic at least is known to work using the C key to boot from CDs with an Apple-branded drive."

 

[olePigeon]

Also, with a custom ROM, you could add any sort of key codes.

I would LOVE to have a Mac load with an animated splash screen like in Hackers. :lol:

 

[NJRoadfan]

I've used NEC Multispin and Plextor drives without a problem on 68k machines. The latter even worked with A/UX installation if I recall. The extension used in System 7 was both the Apple universal one and freebie one called "CD-Sunrise" (had a palmtree on the icon or something).