Can you change the CD drive in a CDTV?

[Cyberus]

I don't actually own one, I'm curious!

It'd be cool if you could a) use a faster drive or b) at least use a tray loading drive....

[Orjan]

You probably could exchange it with another one, but since the CD interface ( probably ) isn´t either IDE or SCSI, you would have a hell of a time finding one to replace it with...

[odin]

I don't think so, iirc the drive in the CDTV is a sort of custom-y SCSI derative.

[bloodline]

I'm sure it used a custom Philips interface... you missed your opertunity to ask Dave :-)

[odin]

According to oli_hd it used an interface called MKE or something. Apparently also some old Soundblaster cards had this interface on them.

[downix]

MKE?  Man, I have 3-4 of those drives laying around, the fastest one being 4x.

[Cyberus]

Oh, MKE = MATSUSHITA KOTOBUKO ELECTRONICS (from a quick google)

So it would be possible to user a faster, tray-loading MKE drive in theory? Interesting...

[Exitof99]

Hahah, I think I burnt out my CDTVs CD controller, I tried installing an IDE drive in place of the internal CD drive. Neither a IDE hard drive or a IDE CD drive would work.

Well, actually, I did put it all back together and it still did work, so it's probably not damaged. I've just been having some bad floppy problems lately...

Interestingly, I found a site that discussed the very limited (7 or second versions of the CDTV with a built in IDE interface. Like so many other Commodore projects, that wound up being scrapped!

[odin]

@exit:

You WHAT? OMG.....that's on par with staticman's action  :-o.

[Exitof99]

Yes, well, I saw it this way: It's an unexpandable A500 in a box, stuck with 1.3 Kickstart... what is it really worth to me? I asked myself this next, would Commodore be as stupid to invent their own CD drive interface outside of IDE and SCSI? (REALLLLLY stupid question, but I gave them a glimmer of hope that they possessed common sense at some point.)

It had as many pins as an IDE cable, so I swapped out their cable with a standard IDE cable with two ports. It refused to work if any other device was attached, whether it's a slave or master.

At this point I realized that it was a futile experiment, and screwed everything back together, made a final test and everything was normal again.

The only reason why I've been concerned for its health is I brought it to my bands practice room to run sample off it. I kept gettting problems loading of the floppy, but it turns out it was just those crappy easy-die-now 3.5" floppies...

Exit!

Oh, one other thought is maybe it *is* a very limited IDE controller, which only accepts PIO 0 or something...

[pjhutch]

TRy some tips from this site:

http://www.cdtv.org.uk/1280.html

[aardvark]

Okay, my web research indicates that the mke or creative/panasonic or panasonic interface was quite rare usually being used on soundblaster cards in isa slots.  Most of the creative cd-roms were 1x and 2x jobs, _but_  Teac made a 4x one; the CD-55 series. One website listed one for around $138  ??!!?

 But I'm sure that there must be places to come up with one for cheaper.  I'm not sure if the transfer rates over the CDTV's interface would allow for 4x speeds, but the thought of 2-3x speeds with a caddy-less tray....... mmmm no caddies.  :-D  
I think it might be worth checking out to see if it works, but if it doesn't it would be an expensive doorstop with few takers.  :-(

[odin]

It also better be a black drive. Imagine a white unit in a CDTV housing....

[aardvark]

One word.....Paint.  But take the bezel off the drive first to do it.  :-D