-=> MATT MC_CARTHY wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 MM> Hi Wayne.

Hi Matt.

 WC> The old cable for the Creative CD-ROM drive is wired
 WC> blank, white, black, red with red to the side of the drive
 WC> while the new CD-ROM's cable goes into the drive as
 WC> white, blank, black, red
 WC> Same order but the blank is in a different place on each plug
 WC> and the pins do not match.

 MM> The old SB - Creative CD is wired G-L-G-R (looking at the back of the
 MM> CD drive), 

(checked, exactly so)
Easy enough for me to to check as it's stowed away.
My eyesight not being what it was I'd missed this :-(
Slightly more trouble to remove the current CD ROM just to look.
The angle it sits in the machine I may or may not be able to
see markings, if any, on the Acer, (Aopen and now Beng) drive.
Give it a shot breaking out magnifier glasses and trouble light.

 MM> and many times one of the "G"rounds was left out of the
 MM> cable since they are connected together on both the drive and the sound
 MM> card.

I've since discovered I _can_ play audio CD's to the headphone jack
on the front of the drive but until I cobble together
a cable not output audio through the sound card. 

 MM> Two different type of 'white' plugs were used, one fit a set of round
 MM> pins, the other fit a set of mini-square pins.  You might need a
 MM> magnifyer to tell the difference.

 I need a magnifier for most everything these days and good
 lighting to boot. Anyway SoundBlaster to drive white plug,
 doesn't fit, Turtle Beach - black to drive fit's but no
 driver for this O.S. and the Turtle Beach sound card is PCI.

 MM> The new CDs, and sound cards as well, with the wide flat black plug
 MM> (sometimes with a locking clip) are wired R-GG-L with both G's
 MM> connected together on the sound card and in the drive.

Now that a useful bit of info along with above, hope it's
stamped onto the Acer drive for my own reassurance.
Currently not up to messing with it for a day or two.
If this _is_ stamped on the Acer I shall proceed boldly and
without fear, much thanks for your help!
Charles and Roy too!!!

 MM> Put your meter on the pins of the card and the CD to ID the grounds
 MM> first, as you wouldn't want to ground the output from the CD drive.  I
 
No longer possess a meter, got a LED continuity tester but that 
would draw too much and no transistors around anymore for impedence 
matching :-(
Since the case is open I broke out the trouble lamp and 
verified precisely what you say above. Had not seen these before
my eyesight being what it is. Now the lights go on, it's _G_rounds
and _L_eft and _R_ight. I'll pick up some shrink wrap tubing 
when I snag the CMOS coin cell, alter the cable to suit  
and my machine will be upgraded and full featured again!!!

 MM> can't remember whether they were protected by a resistor or not.  Any
 MM> two pins that show up connected together are the grounds.

Hey now that three of youse guys have tightened me up
it's no problem at all, clip, solder, shrink the shrink wrap
and I'm good to go :-)

 MM> Don't trust the colors, as every supplier used different colors, red,
 MM> green, yellow, white, black, were all used interchangeably with no
 MM> rhyme or reason.

That's what concerned me the most but with the above provided 
information and the info I saw on the drives after I knew to look
for it shall allow this to go smoothly.
Red is right and white is left in both cases here so even if the 
cables had fit the worst I would have suffered was a loss 
of the left channel, and some nervousness, due the the white being
interchanged with the blank between the cables.
All is clear now and thank you very much for supplying
this very conclusive information which will allow me 
to proceed with confidence.
I'd not previously been confident about this machine but
everything looks pretty solid now and I've gained a fast CD drive,
Pentium rather than 486, 32 instead of 20 mrg RAM and all
for picking it out of the trash bin while walking the dog!!!
I will need to reinstall the SoundBlaster to gain some DOS command line 
operability as I didn't install Quick CD.
I'll have to go through much of this all over again installing
the Turtle Beach card if I go to Win 9x as I just
picked up the SoundBlaster manual and see no mention of
Windows 95, IOW's this software predated the release of that
operating system and I doubt there's an upgrade at their
site for so old a sound card at this time though I shall look.
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