🚀 go-pugleaf

Posted to alt.cdr-rom by "rex@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Rex Sanders))

Pinnacle Micro announced at MacWorld Expo in San Francisco a new,
recordable CD-ROM drive with a list price of $3,995!  This price
includes ISO 9660 and HFS software for Macs.  PC interface kit and
software is extra $200.

This device is half-height, 5.25" SCSI, 1x recording speed.  Supports
all commond CD-ROM formats, including multiple-session.  Supports
standard write-once media, including Kodak's.

I asked a rep if you need a fast hard disk to feed this device, as you
do with many other write-once drives.  His reply (paraphrased):

    We tested this with the slowest hard drive we could find - and
    Apple 40 Mb.  Worked fine.  All you need is a hard drive with
    173 Kb/sec throughput.  Floppies won't work, but everything else
    we tried did work.

Well, don't know if this is hype or not, but this rep also claimed the
entire January production run was sold out, and they were now taking
February delivery orders.

The device was not much to look at - looks like a half-height CD-ROM
drive in and external box.

Proper software to drive these boxes has been the Achille's heel of
earlier write-once CD-ROM drives.  The Pinnacle rep claimed they had
been working more than one year on the software, and acknowledged that
writing it was difficult (again paraphrasing, he used non-family-values
language here :-).

For me, and several other MacWorld Expo attendees I talked to, this
announcement was the highlight of the show.

Presumbably, you can get more information by contacting:

    Pinnacle Micro
    19 Technology Drive, Irvine, CA 92718
    800-553-7070, +1-714-727-3300, +1-714-727-1913 (fax)
    
Anyway, caveat emptor.  I have no connection, can't make any
recommendations, etc.

-- Rex
   rex@octopus.wr.usgs.gov