11 May
2013
11 May
'13
12:01 p.m.
>Wow, that's a lot of caddies. I never had use
for more than 2 at a time.
I never USED more than one at a time, since there
wasn't room for a second
one in the drive.
But I did store CDs in caddies, to save time by not having to take a disk
out of a caddy and put a different one in.
On Sat, 11 May 2013, Alexandre Souza wrote:
It was common pratice (when they were cheap) to
keep CDs inside them
to protect against (mis)handling. In that time Font and Clipart CDs were
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY expensive here in Brazil :o)
[As in my personal collection], Just a dedicated CADDY for each disk??!?
In the university (UCBerkeley) libraries, it was common practice for a
very long time to purchase a dedicated DRIVE for each CD, and dedicate a
PC to it. A patron wanting to use a given CD would go to the specific PC
that had it (or wait in line for that PC).
They then argued that CD-ROMs, which cost significantly less than the
dead-tree editions of the same works were TOO EXPENSIVE, due to the "need"
to have SO MANY dedicated PCs with dedicated drives.
I tried, without success, to argue against the dedicated drives, using the
analogy that it was exactly the same as buying a VCR with every tape.
I made no progress, even with the library computer technical staff at the
UC Office of the President (UCOP ran Melvyl melvyl.ucop.edu, which is the
multi-campus Online Public Access Catalog)
One small subject library had networked PCs, with a 5 drive CD tower on
the server. One could request [in writing and significantly in advance]
to have a CD changed on the server.
I suggested that the libraries with PC networks should purchase Keith
Hensen's "Cubik". It was a large square box containing a "Kodak
Carousel"-like rotating round tray holding 100? CDs, and a CD drive in
each corner of the box. The 4 drives were SCSI, and the tray rotation,
load and unload of the drives was RS232. The tray was modifiable to be
lift out, for multiple trays, OR, the complete units were designed to be
stackable.
One of my favorite personal CDs was "Computer Libraray"/"Computer
Select",
with full text of most of the computer magazines and abstracts for almost
all of the rest.
I offered to donate a copy to the university, but they turned down the
donation due to the cost of providing a dedicated drive and PC.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com