Some Old PC Help

[Whoo]

I was on my way home from hunting today, and I drove by a yard sale. There was a computer that looked like an Intel 386/486. And sure enough, it was. The people gave it to me for free. It's a Tandy Sensation!. Model number 25-1650. The problem I'm having is with the CD-ROM drive; it isn't opening. Here's a picture of the PC:



I've read that you push the drive in a little, but that isn't working. Has anyone got an answer to this?

[printz]

Does it have a sound card? I think playing Wolfenstein 3d or even vanilla Doom would be best.

[Whoo]

Yes, a sound blaster. Not sure which though. I can't play the games until I figure out the problem with the CD Drive.

[wildweasel]

If that's got some version of Windows on it, a trick I learned once is to open the CD Player application and then click the eject button there. For some reason, CD Player is usually the only Windows program with the "authority" to open a CD-ROM drive even if it's locked by an application. If the button on the drive doesn't work, using CD Player to open it may work. If it doesn't work that way, we can rule out the button being the issue, and perhaps the drive tray motor being burned out might be the case.

[Whoo]

"The MCI Device you are using does not support this command."

[Maes]

Such old CD-ROM units tend to malfunction a lot, I had a 2x drive that needed split-second timing in order to open, and then, not always. I just popped in a "modern" 56X drive and it went much, much better.

You can probably replace it anyway, if it's an IDE. If it's one of those custom ISA things....just throw it away (and its controller) and pop in a sane IDE one. Of course you will probably have only one cable with two channels, so getting the signal there might require some cable flexing.

[Whoo]

Hmm. I have an old IDE laying around. But upon further inspection of the PC, I found that the drive is mounted on the bottom of a tray. I'm not sure how to get the screws out.

[Maes]

You mean it has those rail-mounting "sleds" on its sides? Then it can be freed by pushing two levers towards the drive, and then you can unscrew the "sleds".

[CODOR]

If you don't have a user's guide, it's on tvdog's site as sensman.zip. (That site is mostly for the Tandy 1000 series, but there's material there for Tandy's other mostly-PC-compatible systems too.)

Tandy still has a support site for the Sensation. From what I can tell it's a 486SX/25 (slightly slower than the 486SX/33 I first ran Doom on) and the sound card resembles a Sound Blaster 16 (or at least a Sound Blaster of some sort). I'd guess the CD-ROM drive is not IDE since it uses a 68-pin connector (the drive also runs at 1x)...

[Whoo]

I don't see "levers". I'll post three pictures so you can see.

[Super Jamie]

Ah, the joys of figuring out how old PCs go together :)

It'll either be really easy or you'll have to pull half the rails and trays and shit out. Get a piece of polystyrene (you know the white fluffy stuff), stick the screws into it in little groups and write on it with marker pen where they go so you can keep track of it.

Also that drive has a really weird connector. If the hard drive is IDE, you should be able to scrounge up a dual-connector IDE cable from another PC and use that with a more modern CD-ROM. Set the internal hard drive to Master and a modern CD-Rom to Slave, they'll have jumpers on the back for it.

That way, you can at least get stuff on there with it apart then put it all back together once things are loaded. If you're lucky, the newer CD drive will fit in the spot of the original. If you end up getting Windows on there, networking with a more modern PC should be pretty easy for future loading of files.

[Ahcruna]

Some times old drives still read what they have "in" them. even though they won't pop out when you press the eject button.

If you look at the front of the CD drive, check for a small tiny hole. something like the size of a pen pinnacle.

If you press it with a needle or something that is the same size as the hole (while the PC is on, and you know it's getting power) it should eject a few cm out, then you should pull it out enough to put a CD in to it.

Just keep in mind that you need to have "what ever you press it out with" to be straight!
some old drives have nothing to keep them in place when you press in to it and they will just go anywhere since it's just a small hole in the front case.

Best thing to do here is to just get a 3.5 floppy and make a boot-disk of whatever OS it's using. there should be a CD boot-up option even in DOS-Shell

[Whoo]

Super Jamie said:

Also that drive has a really weird connector. If the hard drive is IDE, you should be able to scrounge up a dual-connector IDE cable from another PC and use that with a more modern CD-ROM. Set the internal hard drive to Master and a modern CD-Rom to Slave, they'll have jumpers on the back for it.

That way, you can at least get stuff on there with it apart then put it all back together once things are loaded. If you're lucky, the newer CD drive will fit in the spot of the original. If you end up getting Windows on there, networking with a more modern PC should be pretty easy for future loading of files.

I'm familiar with the Master/Slave settings with computers, but not manually. I usually set them in the BIOS. Here's some(more) images of the CD-ROM Drive I'm using(It's a 2003 Samsung CD-Master 48e, IDE), and the hard drive.

[Maes]

SB-IDE interface...I can't remember if that would work with "normal" IDE interfaces or only with a Soundblaster's "IDE" connector. Either way, you're better off replacing it with a modern drive. Even a DVD-ROM will work.

[Whoo]

Is it absolutely necessary? I don't really have much money, and I'm saving up for stuff that's coming later in the year.

[myk]

I used to have a faulty CD drive that would not open when I pressed eject, even though it made an attempt to. I could get it to open only by slamming my fist the top of the computer case right after pressing the button.

If your scenario is anything like that, I'd buy a new one. These days, CD drives should be cheap.

[Maes]

Well..I may be thinking in my own terms, where a CD-ROM drive (without DVD-ROM reading or recording capabilities) is a throwaway item pretty much like a floppy disk drive and can be found for free inside the first dumped PC you encounter on the street....in any case, a new DVD-ROM drive is like the cheapest thing ever, or you can always use one you have laying around, or temporarily use your main PC's one (?) unless you only have a laptop, a MAC or a SCSI/USB drive I suppose...

[Whoo]

Well, could you direct to a tutorial on how to set the Master/Slave devices? If the drives don't work I can always get another one once I have a separate section of money. That CD-ROM drive is from my first dead PC.

[Maes]

On most IDE cables the outer connector is the Master (and thus you set the Master jumper on any device you attach there) and viceversa, the inner connector is the Slave and you set any device jumpers accordingly.

That's all there is to it, which is strange considering that IDE devices were/are still in use up to this day, especially in DVD-ROM/RW drives and some hard disks.

Do not leave any IDE devices unjumpered, and DON'T use the "Cable Select" position, it's always highly problematic and better avoided if possible.

[Whoo]

So, would the jumper be this?:



If so, where would it go?

And I also forgot to picture this:



Not sure what it's for.

(I'd also like to thank you ahead of time, as I imagine this is becoming a bit annoying)

Edit:

Just to make sure, this would be the order of the IDE cable, correct?:

[Maes]

Yeah, the jumper is that one and is currently set to "CS" (cable select). There are even engravings on top of the drive to aid even the most clueless PC tech :-p

In the schematic you seem to put the hard disk "before" the CD-ROM drive, which would mean that the HD is the Slave. I'd swap them, and make the hard disk the "Master", even if that means twisting the cable a lot.

Leave them as you picture only if it really can't be helped, but be warned that old controllers and disks can be very temperamental and you're gambling each time you change something.

That small black connector looks like a little-used Digital out connector (goes to the left edge of the CD-ROM drive, but unless you plan to use that feature, you can leave it alone).

[Whoo]

So, switch the jumper on the CD drive to here?:



Or move it to the right on the CD Drive?

[Maes]

No, nothing like that.

You'll have noticed (?) that the jumper grid on the CD-ROM drive is laid out as a 3x2 array of pins, and currently the leftmost pair is occupied.

• Remove jumper from leftmost pair of the 3x2 pin grid array, also labelled "CS" for "Cable Select" on the engravings on top of the drive, that symbolize what the jumper pairs are for.
  
• Replace jumper in the rightmost pair of the 3x2 pin grid array, also labelled "MA" for "Master" on the engravings on top of the drive, that symbolize what the jumper pairs are for.
  

The HD should have a similar array of pins somewhere that are configured in a very similar manner, but I need more photos of that.

But tell me seriously dude, WTF, you've NEVER set an IDE device before?

[Bloodshedder]

On the top of the CD drive there is a key for the connectors on the rear. Right now it is on cable select (CS). To set it to slave, put the jumper in the middle position, corresponding to SL. To set it to master, put it in the right position, MA.

Your hard drive's settings will probably be different, and will likely be printed on the label somewhere, and probably on the circuit board as well. It's hard to tell if what you have circled is even a jumper block.

[Maes]

No, nothing like that.

You'll have noticed (?) that the jumper grid on the CD-ROM drive is laid out as a 3x2 array of pins, and currently the leftmost pair is occupied.

[C S M]
[S L A]
 ^
 |
 | 
 This is occupied by the white jumper!

• Remove jumper from leftmost pair of the 3x2 pin grid array, also labelled "CS" for "Cable Select" on the engravings on top of the drive, that symbolize what the jumper pairs are for.
  
• Replace jumper in the rightmost pair of the 3x2 pin grid array, also labelled "MA" for "Master" on the engravings on top of the drive, that symbolize what the jumper pairs are for.
  

The HD should have a similar array of pins somewhere that are configured in a very similar manner, but I need more photos of that.

But tell me seriously dude, WTF, you've NEVER set an IDE device before?

[Whoo]

Maes said:

But tell me seriously dude, WTF, you've NEVER set an IDE device before?

Nope. All the drives I've set up in the last three years or so were all SATA. Thanks a lot for the help, Maes. If something goes wrong, I'll wait until tomorrow to post it.

[Bucket]

Maes said:

That small black connector looks like a little-used Digital out connector (goes to the left edge of the CD-ROM drive, but unless you plan to use that feature, you can leave it alone).

It's worth mentioning that CD audio was impossible on most drives unless you had this plugged in.

[Maes]

Bucket said:

It's worth mentioning that CD audio was impossible on most drives unless you had this plugged in.

You probably mean the analog cd-audio out next to it, that one connected directly to most soundcards of the day (anything made after SB 2.0, at least) and was mixed analogically with the rest of the souns (mic, speaker, wave, synth etc.)

Most drives of that era had a built-in DAC and playback controls (the very least, a play/skip key) so you could just pop in a CD, hit the "play" button on their front panel, and it would play directly through their front headphone jack and the analog audio out on the rear. And all that without ANY support from the OS (MS-DOS, heh) or even loaded CD-drivers. You could even get that to work with a loose PSU connected to a loose CD-ROM drive!

That connector was also present in practically all drives and still is, although a few had RCA connectors instead. and some VERY rare ones had a hardware VCD playback capability.

The digital one OTOH was much more rarer, and I only recall a handful of soundcards that could use one (the Tandy probably has its own onboard sound solution).

That "Direct digital playback" thing possible on modern OSes is entirely different, since it uses the IDE or SATA and has a significant CPU/DMA/IO overhead.

[Whoo]

(I lied about posting it tomorrow :p)

Powered it up, and it told me to check the power and cable connections. Power was flowing into the drive as it opened and closed perfectly, so it must be a connection. CD-ROM breaker is set to MA, and there seems to be no breakers on the hard drive. Here's some pictures:






Drive 0 is on the CD-ROM, and Drive 1 is on the hard drive.

[Super Jamie]

Whoo said:

CD-ROM breaker is set to MA

You probably want to set the CD-Rom to SLave

If the hard drive is on Cable Select, it won't work. You'll need to set it to MAster as well. If it doesn't have jumpers on the back like the CD drive does, they'll be on the PCB on the underside of the drive. They might be really tiny ones, they usually were on old hard drives. Get a pair of tweezers.

And of course, if the hard drive is set to master and your CD drive is set to master, that won't work either.

There is a way the drives are supposed to plug in, master on the end of the ribbon cable and slave halfway, but it's very rare to find a motherboard which is that fussy. I must have pulled apart hundreds of PCs of this vintage and only ever found one or two that cared about it.