I'm a long time Beeb user but a pretty recent Risc PC user. Could someone please point me in the direction of how I'd go about connecting a CD drive to my Risc PC?

Many thanks,

James

Alternatively parallel port drive.

Hi,

I'm a long time Beeb user but a pretty recent Risc PC user. Could someone please point me in the direction of how I'd go about connecting a CD drive to my Risc PC?

Many thanks,

James

The Risc PC only has one IDE slot, so you'd need to get an IDE ribbon cable that allows you to have two devices on it (if you don't already). Then, making sure one device is set to master and one slave (or whatever the PC nonsense says we have to call them these days), as Andrew says, slot the CD drive in to the large bay above the floppy drive. You might have to knock out the plastic plate first if it's not had a CD in before, but I'd wait until you've tested the drive first before bodging holes in things .

Once you have the CD fitted you can use the configuration tool to tell the computer you have a new CD drive. Just double-click on !Boot on your hard drive to do this.

Not all PC CD drives will work - I used to get ones made by Creative to have some certainty that they'd work. If you have access to a number of PC drives I'd test them to find one that is OK. Otherwise, talk to someone like CJE Micros to see if they can supply a proper Risc PC compatible CD drive.

I can probably scrounge a (few!) CD drives from work and I've got a spare IDE cable with two sockets lying around so I'll give it a go this weekend.

Thanks again.

James