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Article 7772 in alt.cd-rom:
From: [e-mail] (Wayne Smith)
Subject: Mitsumi CD-ROM drives:  ->FAQ<-
Organization: (this space for rent)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 19:54:38 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Over the last few months, I've asked some questions about CD-ROM drives
in general, and the Mitsumi drive in particular.  Here's what I've
collected...


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From: [e-mail] (Eric Forbis)
Subject: Re: New Mitsumi drive

>I am thinking about buying a (cheap) CD-ROM drive for my PC.
>ComputAbility's ad has a new Mitsumi drive for 187$. Has anyone

I bought one for $199 at Software ETC, and brought it home expecting conflicts
with other boards. To my surprise, the physical installation was a breeze and
their factory settings worked fine. I rebooted with the new cd drivers
provided, saw a new drive listed on dosshell, plugged in one of my meager
collection of CD's, and was immediately working. Very pleasent surprise. I
haven't tested the access speed yet, but since responses are relatively quick,
it must be operating at close to the 380ms.

Very good deal, IMHO.
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From [e-mail]  Sat Feb  6 17:04:33 1993
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Photo CD

>Can you tell me if any Mitsumi drives are mentioned in that list, and
>if so will they read mulitsession (Photo CD) cd's?

The document I was referring to indicates that the Mitsumi CRMC-LU005s internal
drive will read multisession using the controller card and device driver
software that comes with the drive.  (for IBM and compatible computers)
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From [e-mail]  Mon Jan  4 16:22:35 1993
From: Stuart M Lichtenthal <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Mitsumi CD-ROM drive: $169  -> Good, bad or ugly?

I bought that drive for $199 4 months ago.
All CD-Rom drives are slow compared to hard disks.  I don't use it for
Multimedia since I don't have any MM CD's.  It is the bare minimum for getting
data off CD's and the seek  time will annoy you from the start. However,
people say that all CD-Rom's have this problem.

Believe it or not, I don't have any music CD's and haven't tried playing any
on the Mitsumi.  The drivers I'm using came from cica.  I couldn't believe the
ones in the box wouldn't work with Windows 3.1.  Nevertheless, getting the one
off cica fixed the problem.  If you are running os/2, be prepared to do battle.
You need to set up a specific dos session in order to use the mitsumi or most
any of the non SCSI CD drives.  Mitsumi has been "working on the drivers" for
quite some time.  What this means is that under os/2, you can't just access
the drive, but have to leave os/2 for dos, and not just os/2 dos, but real
dos before you can get to the drive.

There seems to be a wealth of CD-ROM stuff around.  I only have two disks, one
from Microsoft and one from IBM with alot of programming information on them.
This is also the way that Windows NT is being distributed.
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From [e-mail]  Tue Jan  5 09:18:11 1993
From: Ivo Jossart <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Mitsumi CD-ROM drive: $169 -> Good, bad or ugly?

I have such a drive, and it works fine. It has a special IDE interface and it
uses IRQ 2,3,4,5 (one of these). If you have lots of i-o boards like scanners,
sound cards ... you may get into trouble with irq conflicts. If you can afford
a scsi-cdrom and controller you can attach up to 7 cdroms mod's hard disks ...
on one single controller. (and you can have more than 1 controller in a
machine ...)

It all depends on how much you can afford, and if you want to get some high
tech specs. (like photo cd requires a multi-session cd-player, or heavy
multimedia stuff...)
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From [e-mail]  Thu Jan 14 10:05:46 1993
From: Stevey Weavey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: New Mitsumi CD-ROM Drive
From: [e-mail] (don husby)
Subject: Mitsumi drives

  The fast version is specified to have an average seek time of 350ms, a
sustained transfer rate of 175K bytes/sec.  It claims to be MPC compatible
and meets or exceeds High Sierra and ISO 9660 specifications.  It is not a SCSI
drive, but it does have a 16 bit controller.  It is advertised (by Insight) as
having a 32K buffer, but the user manual says nothing about buffer size, and
there are no RAM chips on the controller board.  I suspect that it does have a
large buffer inside the drive.

  The slow version has an 800ms seek time, 2K buffer, and a 150KB/S transfer
rate and an 8 bit controller interface.

  The fast one is significantly faster than the slow one when running the
Toolworks encyclopedia (My only benchmark).  Both worked with the Soundblaster
Pro (Though I did NOT try them with the soundblaster's CD rom controller.)
using default interrupts, DMA channels, etc.  The music samples from the
toolworks encyclopedia were a little distorted when they were played through
the soundblaster.
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From: [e-mail] (Jeff Kraemer)
Subject: Re: DR-DOS 6.0 and Mitsumi MTMCDE.SYS

>There are problems using the emm386.sys and the interrupt and DMA-transfer
>driver mtmcde.sys together. If I try to load mtmcde.sys with emm386.sys
>installed, the system hangs.

>  This should probably go onto the FAQ file.  It's about the fourth time a
>question of this type has been asked in the past few weeks.  There seems to
>be a bug/feature in Mitsumi's MTMCDE.SYS that prevents it from working
>properly with memory managers.  It will NOT load high.

Huh?  Well, I bought the cheapie mitsumi drive last week (the 150msec one) and
I admit, it caused me quite a bit of grief to get enough free memory to run
_anything_ off of it.  However, after way too much fun with my manuels (sp?)
for 8 hours, I managed to push it up into high.  It ate allmost all that was
available in high *grr* but up it went.  With no tsrs running, I got it to 627k
free.  I reloaded a disk caching program, and now I have 599 free.  The trick
lies in the order that you put the items in autoexec.bat and config.sys.

I still havent figured out the dippy windows cut and paste yet, but if there is
interest, I will dig back out the windows book and figure it out, and post my
autoexec and config files.  I should note: I'm using DRDOS, which I strongly
recommend, and the tricks I used wont work with DOS.

PS I am using emm386 at the same time.
Email me, and if I get too many I'll post it.
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From: [e-mail] (Mark Harrison)
Subject: Re: New Mitsumi -- Driver loaded high w/QEMM?

>Has anyone managed to load the device driver for the NEW Mitsumi drive,
>the LU-005S, high using QEMM?

>I've got 6.02 of QEMM, but everytime the driver tries to come up when asked
>to load high, it just freezes, and doesn't load.  The system isn't ENTIRELY
>locked up, as the numlock light still toggles and I can reset with a C-A-D,
>but the driver never loads high.

>Anyone having loaded it high with QEMM who would like to pass the info on to
>me would be much appreciated.

I've read about this problem several times now.  I just picked one up last
night and had no problem load everything high with QEMM 6.02.  Perhaps I got
newer drivers?  My only problem is that I can't use the DMA option of
MTMCDE.SYS with Sherlock Holmes or Carmen Sandiego.  It could have something
to do with my soundboard.  Simtel works great with DMA option.

I'll bring in my disk tomorrow and see if we have different versions.  If so,
I'll mail mine out to anyone who needs newer ones.  I'll also try to bring in
my config.sys and autoexec.bat if our drivers are the same.
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From: [e-mail] (Peter John Swiatkowski)
Subject: Re: What is the access time on the cheap Mitsumi?

>From my reading of the BBS CD-ROM conference: Mitsumi have released a new
>model drive (500 in the model number I think) which still uses their
>proprietary interface but has 350ms seek times and is fully multi-session
>XA and photo CD compliant. The selling price is generally a bit higher by I
>have seen vendors offering it for less than US$200.
>Do you happen to know what size buffer it has?

32K I believe. Not a lot but more than many of its competitors.
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From: [e-mail] (Seng-Poh Lee, Speedy)
Subject: Re: DAK BSR CD-ROM drive
> I purchased a $200 BSR drive from DAK (which comes with a proprietary non-
> SCSI host interface. The drive works fine, but the host adaptor interferes
> with the floppy drives.

How so? I have no problems whatsoever. My card is set for 310 and IRQ 2

> Since I have been unsuccesful at getting through DAKs' customer support
> phone line for more then 3 weeks now, and sinc e DAK does not respond to
> customer support FAX requests,

I faxed a query in and they DID call me back. Three weeks later, but they DID
call back.

> Can anyone recommend another source for the drive that DAK sells, or a
> different drive ? Something in the $200 range is preferrable. It must be
> external as I have no open bays left in the machine. Is the Mitsumi drive
> any good ?

The DAK BSR drive IS a Mitsumi.
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From: [e-mail] (Pat Barron)
Subject: Re: Tech info on Mitsumi CD-ROM or drivers

>From: [e-mail] (Eric Dittman)
>Subject: Re: Tech info on Mitsumi CD-ROM or drivers
>Mitsumi's phone number is 408-970-0700.
>It was real nice of them to leave out their address and phone number from
>their manuals.  Fortunately, a call to 408-555-1212 tracked them down.

Good luck getting any info out of these folks.  I've dealt with them, over the
same issue that Terry has (except I was trying to write an OS/2 driver for the
low-end drive, and trying to write a better DOS driver to replace the one I got
with the drive, which is much too slow for my tastes [and Mitsumi confirmed for
me that their driver doesn't have much in the way of optimizations).

Apparently, they left their address and phone number off of the documentation
because they simply do not want to talk to end users.  After badgering their
customer support manager for weeks, I finally got them to send me the
engineering spec for the drive (under non-disclosure, so I can't share it -
sorry!).  I found some bugs in the spec, and single-stepping through their DOS
driver revealed that the driver was using commands that were not documented in
the spec.  Trying to ask them about it resulted in about two months of
unreturned phone calls and FAXes.  When I finally managed to catch the customer
support manager at his desk, he effectively told me they couldn't support end
users, they wouldn't answer my questions, and there was nothing else they could
do for me.  Apparently it would have gone differently if I were an "established
company" and wanted to contract to write a driver for them.  During my first
conversation with him, he offered to send me the source code for the DOS
driver, which he later changed his mind about.  When I asked what I could do
about this drive that's useless in my OS/2 machine, he said "Please understand
that OS/2 *is* important to us", but there was no schedule for doing an OS/2
driver for the low-end drive, since they're busy working on getting their
newer products out the door.

Disclaimer:  as you can probably tell, I'm still pretty steamed about all of
this, and I'm sure it shows in what I wrote.  Take it for what it's worth.....

P.S.  If you want to reply to this, ignore the headers and send replies
      to me at "[e-mail]".
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From [e-mail]  Tue Jan 12 17:25:05 1993
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: CD-ROM: SCSI vs "other",fast vs slow,Mitsumi,MPC,formats ->?

> 1) Given the relatively low data transfer rate of these CD-rom drives,
>    is there any advantage in getting a SCSI cd-rom (and paying $150 to
>    $200 for a SCSI controller) or would a proprietary controller card
>    be perfectly adequate?

Well, you can upgrade to a better SCSI card (maybe one with caching or some
other features), but you're stuck with a proprietary CD-ROM controller.
Otherwise, I'd say it's a crap-shoot right now.

> 2) Is this multi-media thing just a list of required hardware?
>    (ie are cd-rom drives sold 3 or 4 years ago just as MPC compatible
>    as currently available ones?)  Is it possible to buy a cd-rom drive
>    today and find that it is in some way (major or minor) not MPC
>    compatible?

Some drives are really slow, and are thus not compliant.  MPC is used by
CD-ROM disc creators to have some kind of minimum measure of speed.

There are two parts to the speed issue: access time and data transfer rate.

Older drives may not be able to decode fast enough to run at 150k/sec, and
that can be a problem, but the access time can be an even bigger deal when
the software expects to be able to get around the disc.  For example, if you
have an interactive adventure game where going through a door requires moving
halfway across the disc, and you have an average access time of 1 second
(1000ms), the game is going to feel slow.

> 2a) I have read that the old (and still prevelant) transfer rate of
>     150 k/sec is at best borderline as far as animation goes.
>     Will I really really be sorry that I didn't get a 300k/sec drive?

Interestingly enough, you probably won't, at least not in this regard.

Currently, Video for Windows won't run very well on a 150kb/sec CD-ROM drive
(even on an Adaptec 1740 EISA SCSI adapter and a 350ms ast drive).  Originally,
QuickTime wouldn't handle that very well, either, but improvements are being
made.  In other words, by the time it really matters, most software will be
able to handle the slower data rates.

On the other hand, you won't regret buying a 300k/sec drive.  I have two
(an NEC CDR-74 and a Sony CDU-561), and I wouldn't want to use anything slower.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Wade Guthrie)
Subject: Re: CD-ROM: SCSI vs "other",fast vs slow,Mitsumi,MPC,formats ->?
> 1) Given the relatively low data transfer rate of these CD-rom drives,
>    is there any advantage in getting a SCSI cd-rom (and paying $150 to
>    $200 for a SCSI controller) or would a proprietary controller card
>    be perfectly adequate?

Well, you have to ask yourself: do you want to stay with DOS for the rest of
your life?  If the answer is no (I am planning on getting Linux, for example)
then I think SCSI will be more compatible with other OS options.

As far as throughput, heck, I don't know.  The reason I originally went SCSI
was card slots.  I can have up to seven devices (I currently have 2 hard disks
and a CD) plus a floppy controller and only suck-up one slot.

>    (I've read about tons of problems with SCSI drivers.  Are drivers for
>     proprietary controllers more or less trouble-free?)

I had to do one driver swap (to get sound -- the first driver did data okay,
but no sound).  This was no hastle (and DC Drives should have known better,
anyway).  From what I've heard, the Correl SCSI drivers are pretty good as
well.  The proprietary drivers will be matched to the CD-ROM, so they should
be pretty okay too.

> 2) Is this multi-media thing just a list of required hardware?
>    (ie are cd-rom drives sold 3 or 4 years ago just as MPC compatible
>    as currently available ones?)

They may not be fast enough.  I don't remember the speed requirements, but I
think it is in the neighborhood of 350ms access on the CD-ROM.  The cheapest
drives (as well as most of the 3 or 4 year-old ones) are gonna be in the area
of 600ms.

>    Is it possible to buy a cd-rom drive today and find that it is in some
>    way (major or minor) not MPC compatible?

Yeah, speed.

> 3b) I haven't asked HI-TECH if they sell a starter-pak of CD software, but
>     is it cheaper in the long run to buy a drive and start-set of cd's in
>     a combined deal (what, $280, $325?) or just buy the drive of my choice
>     and buy the software of choice separately?

Well, it depends on what you want.  I never would buy a description of mammals
(a common CD in the CD-bundles sold with the drive) on my own.  Yeah, I could
get one cheaper if I got it with the drive; but, I got away cheaper still --
I didn't get it at all.  When I looked what came with the bundles and asked
myself: would you buy any (or even 3 out of 5) of those on your own?  If the
answer is 'yes', then you should probably go with the bundle.

> 4) Is there a top-10 list of "must-have" cd's. or a list of stuff not to
>    get?  Does anyone have any preferences either way?

I decided that one big reason to get a CD-ROM was to get a tap into all the
shareware (it is a lot easier than down-loading, for me).  I think that the
SIMTEL disc ($24.95, as I remember from Walnut Creek) is really cool.  In
addition, there's the CICA windows disk.  I'd give the GNU disc a miss, cause
the stuff's not set-up for PCs (find a disc with the GNUISH stuff on it --
SIMTEL has some, but not a lot).  Finally, if you get a CD-ROM drive that
takes caddies, you can't beat Walnut Creek ($4.95); their number is
1-800-786-9907.
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From: [e-mail]-SERVER1 (Mark D Beyer)
Subject: Re: CD-ROM: SCSI vs "other",fast vs slow,Mitsum

>    is there any advantage in getting a SCSI cd-rom (and paying $150 to
>    $200 for a SCSI controller) or would a proprietary controller card
>    be perfectly adequate?

If you have lots of peripherals and not a lot of open slots, SCSI is good
because you can daisy chain 6 or 7 peripheral devices to just one adapter.

>    (I've read about tons of problems with SCSI drivers.  Are drivers for
>     proprietary controllers more or less trouble-free?)

The SCSI spec is not the cause of buggy drivers.  I've not had problems with
Adaptec drivers.
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From: [e-mail] (Adrie Koolen)
Subject: Re: CD-ROM: SCSI vs "other",fast vs slow,Mitsumi,MPC,formats ->?

>1) Given the relatively low data transfer rate of these CD-rom drives, is
>   there any advantage in getting a SCSI cd-rom (and paying $150 to $200 for
>   a SCSI controller) or would a proprietary controller be perfectly adequate?

When you compare a CDROM with a hard disk, there's a big difference in one
respect. With a hard disk, you normally only want to read files and do nothing
with the blocks as you read them. Not so with CDROM drives.  As you play an
animation (real time file), you want to do something with the blocks as you
read them, e.g. send them to audio play hardware or the VGA. In the meantime
you need processor cycles to process the data.

To do all this with the limited resources of the PC, you want the CDROM
hardware to be as fast as possible, i.e. a low AT-bus load and a fast and
efficient MS-DOS driver. When reading ordinary files, you will probably not
notice whether the load of the CDROM drive(r) is 90% or 10%, but when playing
animations, you'll see and hear the difference.  Note that Microsoft specifies
a maximum of 40% for MPC compatibility.

Most SCSI adapters are very efficient in their way of transfering data over
the AT-bus. Especially bus mastering controllers like Adaptec's AHA 1542b.
DMA, when not implemented cleverly, can be real bad in bus load.
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Subject: CD-ROM: SCSI vs "other",fast vs slow,Mitsumi,MPC,formats ->?
From: [e-mail] (Terry Goodman)

>   (I've read about tons of problems with SCSI drivers.  Are drivers for
>    proprietary controllers more or less trouble-free?)

Under DOS, yes.  But a proprietary controller is less likely to be supported
by your next operating system than a popular SCSI adapter from a major
manufacturer.

>2) Is this multi-media thing just a list of required hardware? (ie are cd-rom
>   drives sold 3 or 4 years ago just as MPC compatible as currently available
>   ones?)  Is it possible to buy a cd-rom drive today and find that it is in
>   some way (major or minor) not MPC compatible?

The original MPC specifications as to system RAM and reader speed were
unrealistic.  Moreover, you might be wise to hold out for a reader that is
Kodak Photo-CD compatible.

>2a) I have read that the old (and still prevelant) transfer rate of 150 k/sec
>    is at best borderline as far as animation goes.  Will I really really be
>    sorry that I didn't get a 300k/sec drive?

If animation is your interest, yes.  If your CDROMs are shareware file
collections or even just text databases, slow access will be less disturbing.

>   Are there any advantages in getting the external vs the internal drive?

The extra expense of an external unit (with its cabinet and power supply) may
be worth it if you have multiple PC's and may want to share or occasionally
move the drive to another system, or if you have other plans for the drive
bay space in your system unit.

>4)  Is there a top-10 list of "must-have" cd's. or a list of stuff not to get?
>    Does anyone have any preferences either way?

Microsoft Bookshelf, an encyclopedia, and one of the mammoth collections of
Great Books.  The Atlas products are pretty and interesting, but very sparse
on data and instantly out of date, in our changing world.

DAK has a Computer Select Limited Edition CDROM available that may well be
worth more to you than the price of a drive from them, if you do any PC
consulting.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From [e-mail]  Mon Jan 18 01:46:18 1993
From: [e-mail] (Peter Gottlieb)
Subject: cd-rom: scsi vs "other",f

>1) Given the relatively low data transfer rate of these CD-rom drives, is
>   there any advantage in getting a SCSI cd-rom (and paying $150 to $200 for
>   a SCSI controller) or would a proprietary controller card be perfectly
>   adequate?

If you don't need the SCSI card for other things or for future expansion, you
can stay with a proprietary solution.  You are correct about the speed.

>   (I've read about tons of problems with SCSI drivers.  Are drivers for
>    proprietary controllers more or less trouble-free?)

I had no problems with adding a Toshiba XM3401B to my Adaptec 1542b.  The only
thing missing being able to play audio disks, but that is due to the lack of
driver and can be solved at any time by buying the CorelSCSI driver package.
I don't really care about playing audio disks, though.

>2) Is this multi-media thing just a list of required hardware? (ie are cd-rom
>   drives sold 3 or 4 years ago just as MPC compatible as currently available
>   ones?)  Is it possible to buy a cd-rom drive today and find that it is in
>   some way not MPC compatible?

The MPC standards are not too tough as far as CD-ROM specs go.  But there are
reported problems with drives that claim to be MPC compatible.  Most drives
today that claim MPC work fine.

>2a) I have read that the old (and still prevelant) transfer rate of 150 k/sec
>    is at best borderline as far as animation goes.  Will I really really be
>    sorry that I didn't get a 300k/sec drive?

It is a cost vs. utility issue.  Yes, 150K is borderline, but if you wait for
the faster drives to become cheaper, you will not have the use of the drive
until then (which could be a couple of years).  I decided to bite the bullet
and get a 330 KB/sec, multisession drive.  This set me back $500, but at least
I won't have to mess with my system for a while.

>  I know that there is a fast and slow Mitsumi drive, and I have also read
>  about the "order one kind of drive, but get another (slower) drive
>  instead" phenomena.

Become knowledgeable about what you are buying.  A quick scan here shows two
Mitsumi models:  CRMC, 600msec; and CRMC005, 347msec.

>   Are there any advantages in getting the external vs the internal drive?
>   Is this drive (or CD-rom drives in general) affected by 5.25" floppy
>   drives mounted directly above or below it?

I have heard the powerful motor (and its magnets) can affect floppy or hard
drives close by, but nothing is mentioned in my Toshiba CD-ROM install guide
about this, and I have had no problems.  Perhaps certain drives emit more of
a field than others.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Russ Poffenberger)
Subject: Re: CD-ROM: SCSI vs "other",fast vs slow,Mitsum

>    is there any advantage in getting a SCSI cd-rom (and paying $150 to
>    $200 for a SCSI controller) or would a proprietary controller card
>    be perfectly adequate?

Also, support for CDROM's on SCSI is much more extensive. For now, NT only
supports CDROM's on SCSI. OS/2 I think is also that way (driver may now be
coming available, not sure.)
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For now, THE END...