adding an cd drive to a 1200

[23703jim]

i would like to add a external cd rom drive to my 1200
it is configured with the following 340 meg ide HD, blizzard 1230 IV II /50 mhz along with standdard diskdrive in a desktop case. i was thinking of a apple external cd drive in the case, however, that is scsi? i am running 3.0 os. please tell me in laymans terms what must be done
thanks for your time and xpertise.

james portsmouth va

[motrucker]

After you upgrade you ROMs to 3.1,
1) just add a SCSI interface to plug your SCSI drive into.
2) I would suggest using the Asimware CD file system if you can find it.
This is a very basic, simple addition.

[doctorq]

No need to upgrade the ROMs to 3.1.

Adding a Blizzard SCSI kit and a external CD drive in a external casing with a 25 pin connector, and all it needs is to get configged.

[Amiduffer]

The cheaper route, if you can locate one, is the SquirrelSCSI, which allows you to hook up external SCSI peripherals through the PCMCIA slot.

Good luck with either route.

[Argus]

Amiduffer wrote:
The cheaper route, if you can locate one, is the SquirrelSCSI, which allows you to hook up external SCSI peripherals through the PCMCIA slot.

Yes, but then you lose the pcmcia port for ethernet card use.   See if you can find a Dataflyer SCSI+ for the internal 44pin ide header; it lets you use non-dma scsi drive access by fooling the native ide port into thinking scsi drives are ide.  Not very fast though.  Probably better is to buy a 4 device buffered ide adaptor for the 44-pin header, run a 3.5" 40-pin cable out the back of the A1200 case and use any old ide cdrom drive with IDEfix97 (shareware version on Aminet, iirc).

In that case it's recommended to power the A1200 and the external cdrom drive from an old PCAT power supply.  You'll need to purchase or make a connector from your old power supply to power the A1200.  Works nice though and no more p/s issues.