The first one I can remember was the Mitsumi CRMC-LU005S single speed drive, which was the one I had. It had its own card because it was non-IDE despite the fact that the cable and plug looked exactly like IDE. They did use a proprietary standard. They definitely worked on an 80286, so I think we can conclude that CDROMs did not require an 80386. I can remember some early Shareware CD's with stuff I couldn't use because I only had a 80286. DJGPP springs to mind.
On Sun, 6 Aug 2023 at 23:59, Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > > > On Aug 3, 2023, at 3:57 PM, Ralf Quint via Freedos-devel > <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > On 8/3/2023 11:54 AM, Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel wrote: > > > On Aug 3, 2023, at 12:37 PM, Bret Johnson via Freedos-devel > <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > > > Yeah, USB and CD/DVD makes only sense for a 386+ ... > > USB, yes. CD/DVD, no. USB requires PCI which in turn requires 386+. > Actually, there were supposedly USB host controllers manufactured for the ISA > bus instead of PCI, but I've never actually seen one. But USB protocols > assume you're using a 32-bit (and in some cases 64-bit) CPU so USB really > only makes sense on 386+, though you could probably make things work on a > lesser CPU if you absolutely had to. > > But CD drivers existed back in the early days and they never required > anything special of the CPU. They would sometimes take advantage of special > features if they were available, but it wasn't required. AFAIK, there are no > DOS DVD drivers anyway since I don't think anything has ever supported UDF. > > I don’t recall any sub-386 ever shipping with a CD-ROM drive. But, there may > have been a couple very high end machines. > > The main problem why I consider a CD/DVD drive is that on pre-386 computers, > you rarely have an IDE/ATAPI controller to connect a common CD-ROM drive. > Yeah, theoretically, you could use a SCSI one, but that's a completely > different kettle of fish... > > The first time I used CD-ROM drives was at least on a 486 machine. You could > try to use and ATAPI controller on an AT class computer (80286, or lower), > but then you are getting down into a deep dark rabbit hole where you need to > know what you're doing anyway, so trying to adapt FreeDOS would be a manual > option. > > Hence, from a general, default installation option POV, I stick with my > assessment that it makes only sense for a 386+ machine... > > > Ralf > > > Yep. Same here. > > For some reason, I’m thinking that first CD drive came with a controller card > because it was a SCSI drive. > > However, I already had a SCSI scanner with a better card and just used that > card. > > But that was 30 years ago, I could be miss-remembering it as SCSI. > > Ah, SCSI terminators…. :-) > > Jerome > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
