Subject: Lotus 123 books, IPC Peripherals CD changer....

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:22:26 2003

Just grabbed these out of a trash pile here in the hallways of the Yale
School of Med...
- User's Guide, Functions and Macros Guide, Quick Reference, and Getting
Started books for Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS ver 2.4.
- IPC Peripherals MCD-1040 4X 7 disc CD changer library.

	I grabbed the books, figuring someone here would want them. As for the
CD changer, does anyone know/have about special drivers for the beastie,
or should work as a standard SCSI CD drive?

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

---

From: Tothwolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:24:06 2003

> or should work as a standard SCSI CD drive?

I'm not familiar with that exact model of cdrom changer, but I have a
number of NEC and Pioneer units. All of the SCSI cdrom changers I've used
have a device id for the drive itself, and a lun for each of the discs.
Most OS have no trouble assigning each lun as a drive, but it can get
tricky under DOS, depending on the host adapter's software. The changer
should automatically switch discs as you access the different luns.

What does the unit look like? My NEC changers have a row of 7 buttons
across the front for loading each of the 7 discs, while my Pioneer drives
use a 6 disc magazine. (I'm always happy to give other Pioneer changers a
home too, if anyone here needs to get rid of any.) One thing about the
Pioneer drives and their magazine, is that if you ever need to ship or
transport those units, you *must* remove the magazine. If you don't, one
of the 6 shelves will swing out and damage the pickup. I've got a couple
drives with that kind of damage currently waiting for me to make time to
repair them.

-Toth

---

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:24:25 2003

> drives with that kind of damage currently waiting for me to make time to

	Yeah, I have an NEC (?) internal IDE 4 disc changer. Pretty neat...
	Well, the whole thing itself is about 4"Hx7"Wx13"D... Across the top of
the face is the headphone jack, volume knob, 7 buttons in a row (for
each disc) then the status light. Below that is the tray to load the
discs. And the tray is wider than your standard CD tray...
	With this faceplate on it, my only choice is to keep it as an external
drive.

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

---

From: Tothwolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:26:02 2003

On Thu, 5 Jun 2003, David Woyciesjes wrote:
> > number of NEC and Pioneer units. All of the SCSI cdrom changers I've
> > used have a device id for the drive itself, and a lun for each of the
> > discs. Most OS have no trouble assigning each lun as a drive, but it
> > can get tricky under DOS, depending on the host adapter's software.
> > The changer should automatically switch discs as you access the
> > different luns.
> >
> > across the front for loading each of the 7 discs, while my Pioneer
> > drives use a 6 disc magazine. (I'm always happy to give other Pioneer
> > changers a home too, if anyone here needs to get rid of any.) One
> > thing about the Pioneer drives and their magazine, is that if you ever
> > need to ship or transport those units, you *must* remove the magazine.
> > If you don't, one of the 6 shelves will swing out and damage the
> > pickup. I've got a couple drives with that kind of damage currently
> > waiting for me to make time to repair them.
>

The only major issue I have with the NEC changers I have is that their
audio quality is extremely poor. I don't remember the specs off the top of
my head, but I think their range is something like 1.5KHz-10KHz. When I
did a little research, I found that pretty much all the NEC drives were
like that, so I guess NEC didn't think people would be using their drives
for audio. IMHO, they should have just left off the volume control and
headphone jack if that was the case.

The Pioneer drives OTOH, are spec'd at 20Hz-20KHz, but they seem to
perform slightly better than spec. The issue I've had with the Pioneer
drives is that they do not support digital audio, and Pioneer has not been
easy to get a firmware upgrade out of. All of my DRM-604X drives have
older firmware (2401, 2403, 2404), but there is supposedly a 2405 or 2406
available. According to Pioneer, a firmware kit made up of two EPROMs used
to be available for under $20, but now all they have available are the two
individual chips that made up the kit...and get this...they want ~$45/ea
for them. For some reason, the Linux SCSI layer won't work with the 2401
and 2403 firmware, although it used to (another todo item I guess). The
2405 and/or 2406 firmware supposedly fixed the problems with multi-session
and the combination audio/data cds (those so-called "enhanced" cds).

Both drive types are pretty easy to service, but the Pioneer design is the
best I've seen. After you remove the top cover, the PC board folds to one
side, exposing the drive mech. The optic mech is then easily removed for
cleaning, as it is on the top side. The discs actually go into the
magazines with the label side down.

> discs. And the tray is wider than your standard CD tray... With this
> faceplate on it, my only choice is to keep it as an external drive.

That drive sounds very similar in design to the NEC drives I have. I have
to wonder if it isn't a rebadged or OEM drive? Does it use a regular
external SCSI drive chassis, or is it a custom case? The NEC and Pioneer
changers I have are all custom cases.

-Toth

---

From: Ethan Dicks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:27:54 2003

--- David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > across the front for loading each of the 7 discs, 
> > -Toth

I have one of these... big external case... no magazine.  One of these
days, I'm going to stick it on my Sun server as an extra 6GB of archival
storage access.

> 	Well, the whole thing itself is about 4"Hx7"Wx13"D...

7" wide and internal?  I also have an interal NEC 4-disc changer (a "4x4")
that has seen little use... it's not that fast anymore, and Windows
wants to query each disc at startup.  :-P

-ethan

---

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Jun 10 10:54:02 2003

Tothwolf wrote:
> my head, but I think their range is something like 1.5KHz-10KHz....

	Well, I'm not too worried about audio quality from the NEC changer. I
only use it for data discs, like in a library...
 
> changers I have are all custom cases.

	Well from the back it looks like a regular chassis, but the front plate
is definitely a custom job. I'll see if I can dig up a camera tomorrow
for some pictures... And I'll see if I have time today to crack it
open...

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

---

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Jun 10 10:54:10 2003

> wants to query each disc at startup.  :-P

	Ooop, sorry about the confusion there. The NEC 4 disc I have is the
same size as a regular internal CD drive. The IPC 7 disc external
changer is what I gave the dimensions for.

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

---

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 11:16:24 2003

> for some pictures... And I'll see if I have time today to crack it

	Well, got some pics, finally. After popping it open, it definitely
looks like an OEM drive, in a custom chassis.

Front left corner, after I took the cover off...
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dwoyciesjes/MVC-002F.JPG
.. can't really read the inch numbers on the ruler, but the 2 3-1/2
floppies help give you an idea...

A shot from the back left, topless...
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dwoyciesjes/MVC-002F.JPG
... with another floppy leaning on it, for height comparison

Here is an overhead shot, with the top off...
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dwoyciesjes/MVC-003F.JPG

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

---

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 11:17:00 2003

Ooops. The first picture name is 001, not 002... Here's the correct
link...
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dwoyciesjes/MVC-001F.JPG

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

---

From: Tothwolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 11:19:36 2003

On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, David Woyciesjes wrote:
> > > > Well, the whole thing itself is about 4"Hx7"Wx13"D... Across the
> > > > top of the face is the headphone jack, volume knob, 7 buttons in a
> > > > row (for each disc) then the status light. Below that is the tray
> > > > to load the discs. And the tray is wider than your standard CD
> > > > tray... With this faceplate on it, my only choice is to keep it as
> > > > an external drive.
> > >
> > > That drive sounds very similar in design to the NEC drives I have. I
> > > have to wonder if it isn't a rebadged or OEM drive? Does it use a
> > > regular external SCSI drive chassis, or is it a custom case? The NEC
> > > and Pioneer changers I have are all custom cases.
> >
> > Well from the back it looks like a regular chassis, but the front
> > plate is definitely a custom job. I'll see if I can dig up a camera
> > tomorrow for some pictures... And I'll see if I have time today to
> > crack it open...
>
> Well, got some pics, finally. After popping it open, it definitely looks
> like an OEM drive, in a custom chassis.

I think your drive is indeed an OEM'd NEC drive. It looks nearly identical
to the NEC changers I have, but it has a few differences. My changers all
use high density SCSI connectors, while yours uses the larger 50 pin
connectors.

The plastic mechanism somewhat visible under the ribbon cable looks
identical to the mechanism that is used in my NEC MultiSpin 4Xc changers.
I'll see if I can snap a few photos of one of them for comparison. The
front panel pf my changers has the same basic layout, but the panel design
is more intricate. It would make sense that an OEM drive might have a more
plain front panel. Your drive may be identical to mine internally. If
thats the case, you can obtain a service manual from NEC (I need to do
that myself).

-Toth

---

From: Tothwolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 11:20:32 2003

On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Tothwolf wrote:
> I think your drive is indeed an OEM'd NEC drive. It looks nearly
> identical to the NEC changers I have, but it has a few differences. My
> changers all use high density SCSI connectors, while yours uses the
> larger 50 pin connectors.
>
> identical to the mechanism that is used in my NEC MultiSpin 4Xc
> changers. I'll see if I can snap a few photos of one of them for
> comparison. The front panel pf my changers has the same basic layout,
> but the panel design is more intricate. It would make sense that an OEM
> drive might have a more plain front panel. Your drive may be identical
> to mine internally. If thats the case, you can obtain a service manual
> from NEC (I need to do that myself).

The photos I took of one of my NEC MultiSpin 4Xc changers can be found
here: http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/

Front view:
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-front.jpg

Rear view:
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-rear.jpg

Top view with cover off:
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-top.jpg

Disassembly for cleaning the pickup is pretty straightforward, but it can
be tricky the first few times.

First, power the drive and eject a tray:
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-tray-open.jpg

The trim panel on the front edge of the tray can then be removed by
carefully pulling it upward:
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-tray-front-removed.jpg

The tray can then be recalled, and power removed. If you power the drive
down with the power switch before recalling the tray, it will pull the
tray in anyway. These drives make use of soft power.

Next, remove the front cover. It is held in place by a pair of #2 phillips
screws, one on each side. It also has a pair of clips that snap onto the
bottom of the drive chassis.
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-front-removed.jpg

The interface board is held in place by 4 #1 phillips screws. It is
possible to remove the board without cutting any of the ty-wraps that
bundle and retain the harnesses, but it is tricky. There is a mess of
connectors to unplug, but they are each a different size and/or color,
which makes them much easier to reconnect later.
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-interface-board-removed.jpg

Next, the plastic cover that covers the disc magazine and supports the
clamper can be removed. It is also held in place by 4 #1 phillips screws.
Be careful of the red/black wire harness that connects to the small pc
board. The pc board has a small micro-switch mounted to it that allows the
drive to detect if it has a disc clamped. Sometimes it is easier to remove
the small board instead of unplugging the cable. It is held in place by a
pair of #0 phillips screws.
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-mech-cover-removed.jpg

And finally, the metal shield at the front of the drive can be removed. It
is held in place by a pair of #2 phillips screws. Once it is removed, the
white plastic gear (just below the pickup in the photo) can be turned
carefully toward the front of the drive to move the pickup out from under
the geared bar used to eject the tray.
http://www.techmonkeys.org/~tothwolf/gallery/NEC-MultiSpin-4Xc/changer-shield-removed.jpg

Anyhow, I find I like cdrom and other media changers the way some people
like PDP-11 systems ;)

-Toth

---

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 11:21:36 2003

Tothwolf wrote:
> > ...Well, got some pics, finally. After popping it open, it 
> > definitely looks like an OEM drive, in a custom chassis...
> 
> ...

	Yep, comparing mine to your pictures, they're the same drive, different
face and SCSI connectors. Now I just have to hook it to a machine to see
if it can still read CDs. If it doesn't, no big deal, since I did get it
for free. :)

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818