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TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

About optical drives, I kinda liked how some manufacturers had damn cool faceplates on those instead of the typical, boring white/beige/black ones.
BTC drives in my opinion had "cool" looking faceplates. Something about the way they shaped it, and made those play & stop buttons shaped like small arrows :)
 
I remember that my last CD-RW drive was a Philips CDRW5200, looks almost the same as its 4800 older brother:

1617451068638.png
Though it didn't have the volume knob, headphone jack or two LED indicators. It was anyway hella reliable drive, IIRC it never failed to burn a disc (though I always burned CDs at 16x).
 
I remember that my last CD-RW drive was a Philips CDRW5200, looks almost the same as its 4800 older brother:

Though it didn't have the volume knob, headphone jack or two LED indicators. It was anyway hella reliable drive, IIRC it never failed to burn a disc (though I always burned CDs at 16x).
Not sure I like the contrast between the white face plate & darker (silver?) tray & eject button but otherwise I would have to agree, it does have a lot of character. Also, one of the very few units to feature separate LEDs for read & write functions.
 
Not sure I like the contrast between the white face plate & darker (silver?) tray & eject button but otherwise I would have to agree, it does have a lot of character. Also, one of the very few units to feature separate LEDs for read & write functions.
Looked IMO pretty nice in a black case. Also that was a nice bundle on some drives that they had few other faceplates bundled with them back in the day to match a different coloured case.
 
Found this lovely machine on a Facebook retro group. Beautifully put together.
View attachment 194979
Those Creative drives bring back memories. The first CDROM I had was a Creative Multimedia kit, came with a controller board & the drive. It is still in the basement in my AT tower case & 486 mobo.
Had a lot of fun with the DOS games on CD back then.
 
Those Creative drives bring back memories. The first CDROM I had was a Creative Multimedia kit, came with a controller board & the drive. It is still in the basement in my AT tower case & 486 mobo.
Had a lot of fun with the DOS games on CD back then.
I got one of those Creative units, myself... Although mine doesn't appear to be something special, in fact it may even be a later BTC drive manufactured by the "TOP-G" corporation.
 
52x.. noice..
 
I got one of those Creative units, myself... Although mine doesn't appear to be something special, in fact it may even be a later BTC drive manufactured by the "TOP-G" corporation.
Those drives were handy which had a headphone jack, a volume knob and that play/pause button :)

52x.. noice..
Noice noise, I remember that Liteon drives were like jets launching off :laugh:
 
And the cheaper CD's would explode :D
 
And the cheaper CD's would explode :D
I heard those horror stories but luckily I didn't experience that one.. at 52x, the disc spins at 27500RPM!!!! :eek:
 
And the cheaper CD's would explode :D
Back in 2005 or 2006, I had a brand new DVD-RW drive. The very first DVD-RW I ever had, and also the last BTC optical drive, because they disappeared from the scene soon after. This one, from the pic actually:


Anyway, what happened is that an old Traxdata CD blew up inside DVD-RW, causing terminal damage to the laser pickup, but also to the tray mechanism which literally opened up from the impact, with the shards of smashed CD flying out & onto the floor in front of the case.

I took the drive back to the store & somehow managed to get a replacement unit, blaming the actual BTC for what happened :)
 
Yup, that happened to my buddy down the street.. having a beer, burning a game and that drive was just screaming and it made a pretty fantastic noise. I don't remember if the drive died or not. I want to say it continued to burn on a new disk but at a slower speed, but I don't recall. I think those were the days it took 4 hours to burn a dvd.. but its a little hazy.
 
I forgot to ask & mention in particular... Due to the unexpected issues with one of the Adison systems, I'm on a lookout for Chaintech 6BTM Slot 1 motherboard. So if you happen to have one in working condition please drop me a msg & let me know. Depending on the asking price we might be able to work something out :toast:
 
Hey guys ! So I wanted to show you my good colleague's retro project he is working on. He is a true master of the craft and I hope you like it !
PS: He is the one who hooked me on DFI motherboards so thank you !

Specs are:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
DFI LANParty DK P45 T2RS
4x2 DDR 2 @ 800Mhz
Palit GT 240
Custom black/orange cables
Verbatim 120 Gb SSD
Custom case for display ( he wants to put it on the wall )
1.jpg
2.jpg
3.jpg
 
Hey guys ! So I wanted to show you my good colleague's retro project he is working on. He is a true master of the craft and I hope you like it !
PS: He is the one who hooked me on DFI motherboards so thank you !

Specs are:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
DFI LANParty DK P45 T2RS
4x2 DDR 2 @ 800Mhz
Palit GT 240
Custom black/orange cables
Verbatim 120 Gb SSD
Custom case for display ( he wants to put it on the wall )
View attachment 195136View attachment 195137View attachment 195138
Feels more than absurd to see such old hardware in a modern-looking build like that. :laugh:

Time to crack a beer guys, CPU Galaxy has just posted a new video!

 
I got one of those Creative units, myself... Although mine doesn't appear to be something special, in fact it may even be a later BTC drive manufactured by the "TOP-G" corporation.
Zip250's, very nice.

Feels more than absurd to see such old hardware in a modern-looking build like that. :laugh:

Time to crack a beer guys, CPU Galaxy has just posted a new video!

Cool!
 
I like the idea (a mixture of old and new, is even crossing my mind to hook an old radio and make a system in it) but i would "complete" the new look with a non-wooden inferior tray (black plexy maybe?).
anyway, nice job and fine work (watch the edges how well are done)
 
Check out this cable management. (this is not my work)
cable.jpg cable2.jpg
 

Damn @framebuffer you were faster to recommend a PCIe SATA controller to him, saw your comment after I posted the same. :laugh:
 
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