Has any one else noticed......

[AND_YOU_ARE]

Just recently I was putting together a second pc out of old parts, and came accross an intresting situation in optical hardware.

For some of the older members of tech forums you might remember that on old sound blaster card they had an ide connecter and channel for the new cdroms. This was due to the fact that motherboards from that era only had one ide channel for the hard drive. And you needed to have some place to connect the cdrom. They also had the four pin audio cable from the cdrom to the sound card. This was used for playing a cd from the drive without software.

Aside from that all new and old cdrom, dvdrom, cdrw, dvdrw drives still have the four pin audio cable to connect to your motherboard or sound card. This was for the old cdroms that had a play button on the from of the drive, that you could play an audio cd with out software. However all newer and even older cdroms dont have that feature anymore. I have a cdrom drive from 1998, 2000, a cdrw from 2001, a dvdrom from 2002, and a dvdrw from 2004. They all have the four pin audio cable, but they dont have the play buttom to play an audio cd without software.

I have ripped audio cds without that cable connected. I dont think I am missing anything, but it seems you dont need this cable any more. But both new sound cards and new optical drives still have those connections.

Any ideas?

[killians45]

It also allowed you to jack in a headphone into the cd drive.

[noobzor]

Smear some peanut butter on it and see what happens.

[P.P. Mguire]

I can still use headphones, but the audio cable i think is useless.

[AND_YOU_ARE]

Originally posted by killians45
It also allowed you to jack in a headphone into the cd drive.

I dont know if thats ture. But seriously, how many people put a audio cd in the drive and plug headphones in the jack? I havent in years.

Originally posted by noobzor
Smear some peanut butter on it and see what happens.

Seriously, just delete your post.

[003]

Originally posted by noobzor
Smear some peanut butter on it and see what happens.

Na, try grape jelly, it usually yeilds better results.

[AND_YOU_ARE]

Originally posted by 003
Na, try grape jelly, it usually yeilds better results.

This is a serious thread, take your great ideas else where.

[killians45]

Actually, I had that backwards. Oops! Esentially, on drives the capability to play cd's without a card was done via hardware on the drive. Just plug the headphones in and voila. To play over the system speakers, you used an audio cable from the drive to the sound card. Was a long day yesterday and don't know what I was thinking

[AND_YOU_ARE]

So they still are needed?

I have ripped a cd to mp3 with out that audio cable, but havent tried playing a cd from the drive.

[AND_YOU_ARE]

.......... so no one knows.