Conference hydra::amiga_v1

	A german distibutor sells - I think a Ricoh - CDTV compatible
	CD-ROM for A2000/A3000.
	Price about 1500,- DEM I think.

	But there is no further info at the moment about it.

	Ciao,
	Helmut

Re: .0

>Does anyone know if/when bare CD-ROM drives will become available on the A1500/
>A2000/A3000 systems. Prices? Any special controllers?

Several months ago.

If you get a SCSI CD/ROM drive and you have a SCSI hard disk controller
that supports SCSI direct (Commodore 2091, GVP, Microbiotics...) then
you only need software.

There is a company that sells a CD/ROM file system (see previous notes
in this conference) for about $90 (its the same company that offers a Fish
disks collection on CD/ROM subscription service).

Supra sells CD/ROM drive packages along with the needed software that
work with any SCSI direct controller (you do NOT need to buy/have the
Supra disk controller to use their package).

One thing to consider:  many CDTV titles will work on an Amiga that
is equipped with a generic SCSI controller and SCSI CD/ROM.  However,
the CDTV CD/ROM drive isn't SCSI, and supports some tricks that (as
I understand) can't be duplicated with the SCSI CD/ROM drives.  For
example, full motion video displays of HAM pictures that are 1/3
of the screen size uses tricks in the CDTV CD/ROM drive.

I haven't hear an adequate explanation of any special properties of
the CDTV CD/ROM drive, so I may be overstating things here.

Full compatibility with CDTV may require buying the CDTV add-on for
Amigas from Commodore.  I suspect that the 500 version is many months
away, and knowing Commodore, my guess without any information, is that
the 2000 version is over a year away.

	As I understand it, the "tricks" the CDTV drive uses permit it to
sustain data rates at near the peak rate that the media supports. Normal SCSI
controlled drives can sustain considerably less.

    Hi,
    
    So a CBM compatible system for a A2000 would be pretty unlikely...
    
    There's a Commodore show her in the UK in November and I was thinking
    of taking the plunge then....
    
    Dave