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Mitsumi CD-ROM (wonky!) Help Needed

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Raven

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I have a Mitsumi CD-ROM drive that I got from a friend. He has like 3 more of them, and gave me one because they are quite unique. They have a panel in the front that you press in, and when you release, it pops out. You then pull the thing that pops out, and then a lid can be opened to insert the CD into. You then close the lid, and push the drawer back in.

Very neat. My friend informs me, though, that he can't get them working. I haven't tried yet, but basically normal IDE controllers don't cut it. He had 16-bit I/O cards (16-bit ISA physical format) that are supposed to work with 'em, but again, he's had no luck. I was wondering if you guys have seen these.. Do they hook up to sound cards? Should these ISA cards work for 'em? Should normal IDE controllers work?

It's a 1993 Mitsumi CRMC-LU005S.

Thanks.

BTW - I know I've been gone for quite a while, I've been busy, but hey guys, I'm back. :D
 
Raven said:
I have a Mitsumi CD-ROM drive that I got from a friend. He has like 3 more of them, and gave me one because they are quite unique. They have a panel in the front that you press in, and when you release, it pops out. You then pull the thing that pops out, and then a lid can be opened to insert the CD into. You then close the lid, and push the drawer back in.

Very neat. My friend informs me, though, that he can't get them working. I haven't tried yet, but basically normal IDE controllers don't cut it. He had 16-bit I/O cards (16-bit ISA physical format) that are supposed to work with 'em, but again, he's had no luck. I was wondering if you guys have seen these.. Do they hook up to sound cards? Should these ISA cards work for 'em? Should normal IDE controllers work?

It's a 1993 Mitsumi CRMC-LU005S.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

OK, it seems that this is one of the very early CD-ROM drives. That thing that pops out with a lid is referred to as a caddy. This drive won't work just hooking it up to an standard IDE controller. It has to connect to a proprietary interface. Check out this link section 3.3:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/CDROM-HOWTO/x97.html
 
Did some more looking and found that this is a strange drive. One place had a user that said when you press on the front faceplate the entire drive assembly came out. Also, I found a reference that said the drive specs were in a file called mitsumi.txt. However I couldn't find the file it was talking about. Since it isn't standard IDE, you may want to read the warning from this user.

"I have a Matsushita-Kotobuki (Panasonic, correct?) CR-563-B CD-ROM drive, with the infamous CRE-BTB sticker on it, and the faceplate that says Creative SoundBlaster. It has a connector identical to ATA."


It has a 40 pin header that looks the same as for an IDE drive but the wiring of it is not compatible with IDE wiring. In fact, if you connect it to an IDE header, you can damage both the drive's and the ide controller's circuits in a short time. I once absent mindedly connected this or another similar "Panasonic" drive to an IDE data cable that also had a IDE hard drive attached - the IDE drive would not even spin up, and of course the CD drive was not recognized.

These drives were made to be used with headers/controllers for Matsushita-Kotobuki ("Panasonic") drives - many older ISA sound cards had headers for them you could connect them to - or much less often, there were dedicated drive controller cards, only available as ISA, you could use with them.
These drives were often bundled with a sound card, and somtimes had added labelling because of that, hence the Soundblaster labelling in your case.

If you don't have ISA slots on the mboard you want to use this on, there's probably no way you can use this drive.
 
I may have one of the old ISA cards for this thing. There were a couple of non-IDE "IDE" standards in use. I think Sony had yet a different one.

My first CD-ROM drive was a SCSI Plextor that operated with caddies. Good and bad--the caddies cost money, but you could leave the CD-ROMs in them for storage.
 
Chuckster_in_Jax said:
"I have a Matsushita-Kotobuki (Panasonic, correct?) CR-563-B CD-ROM drive, with the infamous CRE-BTB sticker on it, and the faceplate that says Creative SoundBlaster. It has a connector identical to ATA."
Click to expand...

That's my quote from computing.net :) It refers to a proprietary Panasonic drive which I'm still in the process of getting the sound card for (many more sound cards supporting these exist than dedicated controllers).

I also have one of these push-in then pop-out types the OP mentioned. It needs a Mitsumi controller card, which I believe I have...I'll document it with some decent photos for you shortly.

Edit:

Just as an aside, this is not a "CD Caddy" drive. Very different - I suspect this is one of the earliest non-caddy drives.

I am positive I have the software for this (it's basically a driver for the card combined with a version of MSCDEX) buried on my 320GB external. I will look for you at some point.

This card IS in TH99, I believe the brand is marked as unknown though. Look carefully, I found it before. This doesn't help you much if you don't have the card, but it helps others identify it and maybe supply you with one. I'm not 100% sure this card goes with this drive, but they're both proprietary, and I got them out of the same box...

Edit: great success; the card I have is in fact correct as confirmed here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mitsumi_LU005S_with_accessories.jpg
Watch for the card I show you in the following attachments, this is what you need (or a sound card with a Mitsumi interface)

Photos - Part 1

The Card
 

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Photos - part 2 (too many to attach to one reply only, sorry for the double post)

The Drive
 

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The Software

Now, I realize this gets you no closer to finding the card you need...but this info will be useful later on, so I'll spit it out while I still have it handy.

Alrighty...did some digging. Found on my external the file I was looking for.

lu230.exe - a self extracting file, which extracts the following files:
Code: 
MSCDEX.EXE - 25KB - Modified 10/03/1993 6:00AM
MTMCDE.SYS - 19KB - Modified 03/09/1993 2:30AM
MTMCDS.SYS - 11KB - Modified 03/09/1993 2:30AM
PLAYCD.EXE - 18KB - Modified 16/01/1992 1:30AM
SETUP.EXE - 43KB - Modified 07/09/1993 12:41AM

I also took a trip to DriverGuide and found a couple other matches, including the same files, but with earlier 'modified' dates. Looking back on it, lu005sver21.zip (contents of which the uploader claims came with the drive new) is probably a better match than lu230; that was probably a different but related model.

Details about the attachments to this thread:
-mitlu002.zip: Some sort of driver to get the LU005S working in OS/2 2.1
-lu005sver21.zip: The "earlier" file set, lacking documents, seemingly a disk copy
-readme.txt: notes from an owner and user of the drive - useful!

I/O port address setting:
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/8002/mitsumi1.png

Card layout:
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6848/mitsumi2.png

IRQ, DMA settings:
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9105/mitsumi3.png

I also read this somewhere:
Under DOS 6.x, you 'll need to replace the MSCDEX.EXE by the more recent version from DOS itself. Read the readme files first.
Click to expand...

I'd say do any testing once you get a card in DOS 5.

Now, to get you one of those controller cards...and to finally figure out if my own set works :)

eBay Listings for Possible Cards:
This one, very different card but it may still be the same interface:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Mitsumi-16-Bit-I...0?hash=item51865f70d4&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

This one is the same as mine:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Mitsumi-74-1645A...0?hash=item5ace0d4de0&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116
 

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Yeah, I don't think it's a caddy-type drive as suggested.

As Chuck says, there were three CD-ROM standards before ATAPI: Mitsumi, Sony and Panasonic, and many early sound cards had all three interfaces on them; there were also dedicated interface cards with very minimal circuitry, often supplied with the drive (in the days when 1x drives cost >$100)

I probably have some cards somewhere if ya don't find one.

mike
 
MikeS said:
Yeah, I don't think it's a caddy-type drive as suggested.

As Chuck says, there were three CD-ROM standards before ATAPI: Mitsumi, Sony and Panasonic, and many early sound cards had all three interfaces on them; there were also dedicated interface cards with very minimal circuitry, often supplied with the drive (in the days when 1x drives cost >$100)

I probably have some cards somewhere if ya don't find one.

mike
Click to expand...

Well, it's definitely not a caddy drive; I have one and took photos of it... Caddy drives involve a removable cartridge you put the disk in, then insert in the drive. This works the same way as a normal modern drive, except you manually operate it.

Finding a card likely won't be an issue for the OP, especially with my supplied ebay links (not my auctions, for the record), but I bet you could supply one cheaper if you have one.

It will probably be more headache-free to get the dedicated card instead of one built into a sound card which may have an even more proprietary access scheme.
 
I bought one of these pull-out Mitsumi drives new, my first CD-ROM drive. It had a slightly different faceplate and the card had jumpers not switches, but I do remember it was a proprietary interface. Edit - I also remember it was supported in the Linux kernel in the rev 0.98 or 0.99 days.

I think this was a much lower-priced drive than the caddy units from Toshiba, etc. I still have a couple of those older caddy drives around as they have the block size setting needed for compatibility with my Sun and Digital machines.
 
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I love caddy loading drives. I have three Sony CDU-541 1X SCSI CD-ROM drives. They're built to last (very heavy) and have no problem reading CD-R media (so long as they aren't multi session). Sometimes I get the feeling that a good SCSI 1X drive is about the same speed as a proprietary 2X drive. The old NEC drives and Plextors are among my favourites too. The first generation drives were very unique.

I remember those weird pull out Mitsumi drives, and was always fascinated by the design. Didn't creative labs offer that drive in one of their early CD-ROM kits?
 
You look like you need a Soundblaster 16! I've got one, and it has three IDE-like things on it for a "sony drive", "panasonic drive", and "mitsumi drive".
 
While an SB 16 is a good solution (and certainly info on how to get it working is more plentiful than proprietary cards), if the OP can find a proprietary original card it would be more 'authentic'.

Though, it's possible the SB 16s drivers may allow use in newer operating systems, whereas the DOS-level drivers I've provided above would only be good in DOS, 3x, and maybe if you were lucky 9x.



Edit:
I Tested My Card and Drive
The install went quite smooth. Here's a crude write up of the process when using the same ISA card I used:

0. Set up card with 100% defaults as indicated in the images I showed earlier (port 300h, DMA 7, IRQ 5). Use normal 40-wire 40-pin IDE cable with notches to tell proper orientation on drive (pin 1 appears to face away from power plug). Get the files from lu005sver21.zip on a floppy disk.
1. Install MS-DOS 5 to a hard drive (I tested with 5, should work with others)
2. Boot to DOS. Run from a floppy the setup program (setup.exe)
3. It's fairly self explanatory from here, but for the sake of writing it out for people in the future who need to reference this:
3a. Answer Y to the first question (use MTMCDE, the driver for DMA transfers)
3b. Press Enter on next question - default, C:\DEV
3c. Press Enter on next question - default, C:\BIN
3d. Continue to make files automatically
(following assumes default settings on card DIP switches)
3e. Answer 1 (for 300h)
3f. Answer 0 (for MSCDEX default behaviour)
3g. Recommend using default of 20
3h. Specify 7 (DMA)
3i. Specify 5 (IRQ)
3j. For testing purposes, I did not use extended memory (opens up the door to further complications)
3k. From this point forward, do allow it to make all necessary changes to all necessary files to add drivers on startup.
4. Reboot when prompted.

On my reboot after doing that, it installed the driver and found the drive ("Drive D: = Driver MSCD001 unit 0")
When I put a disk in, the LED blinks while it "inspects" the disk.
However, doing a dir on the D: drive results in a CDR101: Not ready reading drive D
I believe my drive is faulty or at least in need of cleaning or maybe I need older disks...

Sorry if I appear to have hijacked this thread; that isn't my intention. This just seems like a great place to archive this information for the future when people are googling around for info on the drive and/or card.
 
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EXCELLENT! I have this card. All I was missing is the software, and perhaps I can get my friend to give me a second drive/card combo in exchange for a copy. ;D

Sorry I didn't get back to you guys sooner, but I'm 100% sure this is a non-caddy drive. It has a wheel for the hole in a CD and a plate that presses down against an inserted disk to keep it stable.

I'll report back when I get a chance to test this out again.

Thanks tons!

Edit:

I assume normal IDE cables should work with this though? If not one of the two-drive ones (which I assume I'd use the "slave" connector on), then one of the single drive ones? If not what am I looking for/hunting down?
 
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Regular IDE cable (single drive in my case) is what I used to test mine (drive appears faulty though). I believe if it is a particularly old 2-drive cable it doesn't matter which connector, but newer ones you'll have to experiment.

I just picked up a second interface card cheap today; if you want it it's $10 plus shipping, but it sounds like you've got it sorted out.
 
Just installed my own drive in my 486.

The driver and information in this thread is very good. Though I want to add the following:

1. If you can't get the DMA/IRQ settings to work, the drive might work fine without it (using the other .SYS file). It did for me.
2. I used the connector on my CT2760 Soundblaster AWE32. Wasn't any problem to detect the drive.
3. Windows does not automatically find and install the drive. You need to go to Add Hardware, then select "from the list". Click on "Other devices". Find Mitsumi and select CD-ROM Old Single Drive. Then edit the DMA/IRQ setting so it matches with the config.sys settings and the jumpers on the hardware.
 
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