Laptop CDROM drive in a 3000D

[gazgod]

I'm pondering fitting a laptop cd drive inside a 3000D, just wondering if there is room to fit one over the floppy drive? Anyone tried this?

Thought I'd ask here before breaking the rulers out.

Gaz

[Darrin]

I had been thinking about doing that myself once upon a time.  I have 2 floppy drives in my A3000 and a slimline laptop drive would fit easily above them with just a small rectangle cut out for the drive.

The hardest part would have been locating the adapter to convert the laptop sytle IDE connecter back to a 2.5" or 3.5" IDE cable for connection to my Bhudda.

An even easier option now would be to buy a slimline drive in a thin external case with a USB interface and run this to that new USB2.0 card that was just released.

[gazgod]

Thanks for the info.

I have a laptop cdrom from a dell mini desktop here which has a plastic surround for the drive which will make mounting easier and a 40 pin adapter securely mounted on the back.

I already have a scsi dvdrom in an external case but would prefer an internal drive.

Gaz

[miles]

I used to have a laptop drive in my desktop case above the fdd like you are planning, just had to cut out a space for it and make a small metal adapter to hold it firmly in place.  It was a older SCSI 2x so no interface problem there.

[Darth_X]

Are you guys destroying the beautiful A3000 bezel to put in a DVD drive? OMG!
 :-o

[Protek]

Just makes you wonder why there wasn't a drive bay for the cd-rom in the first place. A2000 had one (ok, probably for 5 1/4" floppy) and A4000 has one. Did the A3000 appear at a time when the 5 1/4" floppy was outdated but cd-rom had not quite made it into the mass market.

[amigadave]

Protek wrote:
Just makes you wonder why there wasn't a drive bay for the cd-rom in the first place. A2000 had one (ok, probably for 5 1/4" floppy) and A4000 has one. Did the A3000 appear at a time when the 5 1/4" floppy was outdated but cd-rom had not quite made it into the mass market.

Sounds probable, but I think another possible factor in addition to those two above, was that Commodore was already starting to cut corners to reduce costs when the A3000 was designed.

@DarthX,

Yeah, it could turn out to be a real abortion cutting into a nice A3000D front bezel, but if they are careful and artists, maybe it could be done halfway decently.

[miles]

Got 3 brand new bezels along with heaps of 3k spares, sold the cut one and some other spares ages ago, the 3k is in a converted AT full tower

[Darrin]

Darth_X wrote:
Are you guys destroying the beautiful A3000 bezel to put in a DVD drive? OMG!
 :-o

I'd hardly describe the A3000 as beautiful.  ;-)

It's not a hard job (3 cuts), and if done with the correct tools then non-Amiga users seeing it will probably think the case was designed that way.

[Darrin]

miles wrote:
I used to have a laptop drive in my desktop case above the fdd like you are planning, just had to cut out a space for it and make a small metal adapter to hold it firmly in place.  It was a older SCSI 2x so no interface problem there.

Metal adapter?!  Real Amigans would use chewing gun, glue and duct tape!  :pissed:

 :lol:

[mbrantley]

Darrin wrote:
I'd hardly describe the A3000 as beautiful.  ;-)

That's exactly the word I use. Oddly, I do also admire the very different aesthetics of the 1000 and 2000, as well as the 1200 and 500 wedges.

Slim PC cases like the 3000 were quite common at the time of its appearance, and the CD-ROM era had not quite arrived.

Anyway, I'd never slice into that bezel in a million years, G, but it's your box.

[gazgod]

Relax I have a spare 3000 case, so i can always return it to standard.

I was also considering mounting the cdrom in the right hand side of the case (like a sun ss20 or ultra 1) but considering the lid slides off this would be impractical without mounting the cdrom to the lid of the case and having a very long ide and power cables so the lid could be slid off with the cables attached. But these may interfere with the airflow to the 060 and I wouldn't want that.

Gaz

[dannyp1]

AmigaDave said:

Sounds probable, but I think another possible factor in addition to those two above, was that Commodore was already starting to cut corners to reduce costs when the A3000 was designed.

If it was a cost cutting move why did the A4000 have it when it was a cost cut computer itself?  The A3000 was one of the few Amiga's that wasn't ruined by trying to save money.  I also believe it was the fact that 5 1/4 drives were gone and CD drives weren't popular yet.  The clones of the period also had only a 3 1/2 drive.

[darksun9210]

i think the A4000 had a 5.25 drive bay due to commodore just using a stack of PC cases and PSU's that they had in stock and made for their failed range of PC clones...

i think the 3000 was the last machine "designed without compromise" ... tho they could have added on board ethernet :lol: