JIM HOLSONBACK wrote in a message to ROY J. TELLASON:

JH> Hello, Roy.  Last week, you posted -

RJT> I've been thinking about getting a burner for some time now.  So today
RJT> I stopped by an Office Max store,  since they'd been advertising one
RJT> for insanely low prices ($19.95 after rebates).  I had to ask the guy
RJT> for "the cheap one", and looked at the box a bit,  to see
what they had
RJT> for system requirements on there.  Unfortunately,  the minimum system
RJT> required to support the drive (whose name and numbers I don't happen to
RJT> recall,  unfortunately) was a P-II / 350, which is considerably faster
RJT> than anything I happen to have here.

RJT> I'm not sure if that "minimum system requirement" is a matter of
RJT> running windoze and the software that they give you,  or if it's
RJT> something else.

JH> It gets worse than that - -

Maybe.  

JH> My original CDRW drive is a Teac 8x8x32.  Per the box, system 
JH> requirements were PII 300MHz or higher, Win95 or higher, 1GB or 
JH> larger HDD, 1.2MB/sec transfer rate or faster, and 12ms avg access
JH> time or less.

JH> The "Verbatim" 48x12x48 I got from OfficeMax for $20 AR for my 
JH> son's Christmas called for PIII 450 or faster, and BIR Win98 or
JH> better. 

JH> My newest $20 one from OfficeMax is a Pacific Digital, and the box 
JH> lists the following - - 128MB RAM minimum, Win98SE or newer, PII
JH> 800 MHz or higher recommended for optimum performance.

Uh huh.

JH> I dunno about the OS requirements, but I'd assume that these may 
JH> well make use of the MMX instruction set, or at least that the
JH> software which comes with them would.

I have that in some of the stuff here.  

RJT> I also found out that the drive I was looking at wasn't the one that
RJT> was as cheap as I'd been looking for,  but would've ended up costing me
RJT> twice as much ($39.95,  after rebates) and I would've had to lay out

JH> 

JH> Wrong week.  I see in yesterday's paper that they have yet another 
JH> brand now for $20 - this one by "Polaroid" (I didn't know they had
JH> anything to do with drives).

Yep.  I'm gonna try and snag me one of those.

RJT> Now,  first consideration here is the fact that the fastest machine I
RJT> have on hand is a K6-200.  Also got a P200 handy that I'm not doing
RJT> much with.  I don't know if this is going to be fast enough or not.

JH> I disremember if K6 included support for the MMX instruction set.

This one does,  you can see linux checking _that_ out during the boot process.

JH> I'm about positive that K6-2 chips do.  That might enter into it,
JH> if you want to use the software which comes with the drive.

Not too likely,  since that software is no doubt a large part of those
"system requirements",  and I don't plan on putting w9x on any
more machines here.  I expect that I'll do okay with the linux-based
software,  though.

JH> Another consideration - - these sale drives may just have the very 
JH> minimum of hardware on them - - and maybe like some of those 
JH> Winmodems, the software might not even install if you don't have a
JH> fast-enough chip, with MMX support.

Euw.  Well,  if it's a win-burner I'll take the damn thing back.  Or
something.  But we'll have a go at running it under linux and see how it
goes,  I don't really expect too much trouble.  I hope they're not trying
to do that...

RJT> Second consideration that comes to mind is that I'll probably be
RJT> running this under linux,  not windoze, which I expect is going to have
RJT> some effect on this.

JH> Good luck with that.  I think best check one of the distros 
JH> websites for linux compatible hardware.

No easy way to do that,  from here.  (Yet.)

RJT> Also,  can you slow these things down?

JH> The only software I've used is from Adaptec, and it lets you go all
JH> the way down to 1x when burning.

Apparently from further posts (Jasen,  if I'm remembering right) you can
indeed set the speed you want to use,  so if that's the big hangup then I
shouldn't have a problem.

JH> I guess you could give it a go, and this may be about the only way
JH> to get definitive answers to your questions.  If one of these 
JH> 'bargain' CDRW drives just won't work for you, you could probably
JH> sell it to someone else and about break even on your $20.

Probably,  I guess we'll see.

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