These things are from the days when CD drives were
expensive, basically.
You could put any external scsi device on them (I think even tape drives)
but we used them for CDROM distribution at the university where I dealt with
them.
Not just because CD drives were expensive, but also because
for certain VMS systems there just wasn't an easy way to
hook up a CD drive (depending on the bus and storage options).
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net