Sony Vaio PCMCIA CDROM Drive Model PCGA-CD51

[amigoun]

CDrom is good for games that support CD audio, otherwise CFs are much better for sure.

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by itsmedoofer

Was looking at getting one of these drives but prices have gone stratospheric. Great work on the revised drivers though, great stuff, appreciated

If you don't mind ordering from Japan, have a look on Sendico. Loads on there dirt cheap

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Also good for Cover CDs, Software installs as well….

All cover CDs have been dumped and you can put multiple ones on a CF card. Either in file format or ISO format and use VirtualCD. Same goes for software installs.

Games which run from CD with CDDA are the only things you "need" a CD-ROM for these days.

Thanks to the author of this device driver, good stuff. I'd be interested in finding out how they started out, how long it took etc.

[itsmedoofer]

Originally Posted by alexh

No news listings have become available for long time. The crazy prices are listings that were crazy before. I think they are just so rare. But realistically who needs CD's these days with PCMCIA CF being so cheap and much bigger and faster. These are really just a bit of fun

Totally agree, more for completeness than anything.. As it goes I just brought a nice little external SCSI CD to use with my Blizzard, like you say more for fun than any practical purpose.

[itsmedoofer]

Originally Posted by Lemaru

If you don't mind ordering from Japan, have a look on Sendico. Loads on there dirt cheap

Thanks for the heads up, like I said just brought a external SCSI so scratched that itch, postage to the UK would probably make it unreasonable anyway....

[Estrayk]

I just post for say that I tested today with a PCGA-CD51/A and works like a charm!

Amazing job!

[walkero]

Yesterday I got myself one of these cdroms which works great on my A1200 with this awesome driver. Thank you to the developer for his work.

I have a question about T-Zer0 which is a known game that has audio from the CD during the game. Using the device for audio the game seems to not load after you start it and before you select your craft. If I do not use the CD the game loads fine without any issues.

My question is if anyone managed to make it work?

[cz101]

Originally Posted by walkero

I have a question about T-Zer0 which is a known game that has audio from the CD during the game. Using the device for audio the game seems to not load after you start it and before you select your craft. If I do not use the CD the game loads fine without any issues.

My question is if anyone managed to make it work?

yes seems to work ok so far, CDDA, in game music etc etc.
I installed to hd, patched the game, mount the cd-rom before launching.
Using CacheCFDS from ide-fix
It might have lost your cd settings, just re-run 'T0Setup' and save

[Daedalus]

Has the game been patched to play CDDA by streaming it from the drive? Games with CDDA typically used the audio play commands to let the CD drive handle the audio itself. That output then needs to be mixed with the Amiga's output to get all the audio. I've come across some newer drives that hang when they're given analogue CD audio commands, perhaps that's what's happening here? If the CD isn't mounted it won't try, letting it play itself.

Can the CD audio be played without the game, e.g. using the OS3.9 CD player or similar?

[thulsa18]

Originally Posted by Estrayk

I just post for say that I tested today with a PCGA-CD51/A and works like a charm!

Amazing job!

I am struggling with the installation. Any chance you, or someone else, could guide me?

[thomas]

1> cd data:download/amiga
1> lha -xa x pcmciacd.lha ram:
LhA Freeware Version 2.15 68000+ 
Copyright (c) 1991-94 by Stefan Boberg.
Copyright (c) 1998,1999 by Jim Cooper and David Tritscher.
Copyright (c) 2004-2011 by Sven Ottemann.

Extracting from archive 'PcmciaCD.lha':
 Extracting: (     633/     633)  CD0
 Extracting: (    2198/    2198)  CD0.info
 Extracting: (   10384/   10384)  pcmciacd.device
 Extracting: (    5383/    5383)  PCMCIACD.readme
4 files extracted, all files OK.

Operation successful.

1> copy ram:pcmciacd.device devs:
1> copy ram:cd0#? devs:dosdrivers
   CD0.info..copied.
   CD0..copied.
1> lha -xa x amicdfs240 ram:
LhA Freeware Version 2.15 68000+ 
Copyright (c) 1991-94 by Stefan Boberg.
Copyright (c) 1998,1999 by Jim Cooper and David Tritscher.
Copyright (c) 2004-2011 by Sven Ottemann.

Extracting from archive 'amicdfs240.lha':
 Extracting: (   33170/   33170)  AmiCDFS2/AmiCDFS.guide
 ...
 ...
 ...
70 files extracted, all files OK.

Operation successful.

1> copy ram:amicdfs2/l/AmiCDFS l:
1>

[Port89]

I bought a drive based on these threads ($35 AUD!) and tested today on Pistorm / CaffeineOS.

It worked immediately after just copying in the pcmciacd.device (it replaced one already there so not sure if this was even needed) and then the included CD0 into Devs/DOSdrivers & rebooting.

I'm sure this is somewhat based on the Caffeine distribution already containing everything under the sun, but I was still pleasantly surprised that it just worked.

[kriz]

And source of this one, i need a new external cdrom ..

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by kriz

And source of this one, i need a new external cdrom ..

They pop up on eBay quite often, but the prices have been hiked or people are buying up the cheap/affordable ones and selling them for high prices. Like here for example https://www.ami64.com/product-page/sony-vaio-external-pcmcia-cd-rom-drive-for-amiga-a600-a1200

I got mine for £13 delivered not long ago.

You can find loads in Japan on sites like Sendico, all are pretty cheap but you have to account for shipping fees