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Philips CM100 the first CD-ROM found :-)

Roland Huisman

Roland Huisman

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Hello Everyone,

Now I definitely want the 1985 Grolier's The Electronic Encyclopedia CD-rom :)

This CD-rom came with the Philips CM100 CD-ROM drive I recently found.
I've been looking for an external CD-rom player at the parallel port
for my IBM PC XT, but I like this one much more :)

The player was very VERY dirty, smelled like cigar smoke. Time to clean the drive.
I'd took it all apart. The housing was cleaned in soap water. I'd also swap some electrolytic caps.

But the player came without the interface. Some research told me the CM153 controller
card should work. I found this card in an American online shop. They had more of these cards.
So I bought a spare one to. (Just for 5 dollar!) When they came here I was surprised. They are brand new!

01.jpg CIMG3695.jpg CIMG3710.jpg CIMG3711.jpg CIMG3734.jpg

More information, pictures and a demonstration are on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj-uSWg0LOY

Regards, Roland
 
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Very cool! Always wanted to see one. Quite different than what I expected. I said this in another thread about it being in one of the Computer Chronicles episodes (you can find them for stream or download at archive.org) and was second guessing my memory of the $800 price. I can't figure out which episode specifically it was, but I did find some xml which quotes it. So yes The "electronic encyclopedia" was $300 "In order to use this you need an $800 CD-ROM player for your PC". Ok. I think it's an ad in the episode about the Commodore 64. Very nice find though.
 
Hello Barythrin,

Thanks for the link to the Computer Chronicles. The guy at about 24th minute mentioned
the Groliers CD-Rom indeed. He tells the price is 300 dollar and the player about 800.

But I´m wondering... This episode of the Computer Chronicles if from 1988.
So prices in 1985 would have been a bit higher I think. But I´m not sure.

I´ve read somewhere that the 1985 Groliers CD-ROM came with the CM100 player.
You could do noting without a CD-ROM and the Groliers was the first and only at that moment.

So I really wonder if anyone can confirm this. And I wish to have that version :D

Regards, Roland
 
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hello
there were one on auction some month ago item 310410862791.
realy cool design CM100 and the original CD100 ..I think. :)
/cimonvg
 
You can browse through 1985 and 1986 issues of Infoworld and see how the early CD ROM developed. Good issues to look at are July 29, 1985; Sep 23, 1985; Oct 14, 1985; July 7, 1986; and Nov 8, 1986.

Groliers initially announced a planned price of $199 but you didn't have to pick up a CD-ROM drive. The drive alone was up to $1,500. Other companies were selling CD-ROM based specialty databases but obviously the discs could be swapped. In a way, it was amusing that Groliers had an online version before the CD or Laser Disc versions and now only online versions of encyclopedias survive having outlasted both paper and optically stored offerings.
 
That is a VERY, VERY cool drive!

I can't really tell from the photos, but is that a diode based laser, or is it a helium-neon laser like early CD-Players and LaserDisc players?

My first exposure to a CD-ROM drive was in about 1994 when a friend got a Mitsumi CRMC-LU005S 1x drive second hand, shortly after I went and got a 2x Mitsumi CRMC-FX001DE for myself, had to show him up and all ;-) . After the war of the CD-ROMs it was war of the sound cards, he had an 8-bit Sound Blaster, so I had to get a ProAudio Spectrum card, then war of CPUs, he got a new 486DX-50, I had to get a DX2-66 ;-)
 
@ Cimonvg

Thanks for the compliments! :D The Ebay item is
the same indeed. But it seems also a drive without
the CM153 controller card. I hope the new
owner knows it and find a new one.

@ krebizfan

Thanks for the reply. I wonder, where can I
find these issues of Infoworld? Are these online?

A real nice story about Groliers tough!
How do I have to imagine the online version?
Was it possible to use a BBS in those days to see the encyclopedia?

@ RWallmow

Also thanks for the compliments! :D

I'm very glad the Laser is a diode type. I have a few Laserdisk players
with horrible mirror problems. Glued magnets on mirrors come loose.
You can glue the magnets back but then you're stuck with a
huge alignment problem.

You can see a story and pictures about it here. (Sorry, it is Dutch language.)
http://www.philipsradios.nl/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=12085
I've got recently a servicemanual so I hopefully can fix the player.

A horrible auto translated google version:
http://translate.google.nl/translat.../forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=12085&act=url

Regards, Roland
 
Roland Huisman said:
I'm very glad the Laser is a diode type. I have a few Laserdisk players
with horrible mirror problems. Glued magnets on mirrors come loose.
You can glue the magnets back but then you're stuck with a
huge alignment problem.

You can see a story and pictures about it here. (Sorry, it is Dutch language.)
http://www.philipsradios.nl/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=12085
I've got recently a servicemanual so I hopefully can fix the player.

A horrible auto translated google version:
http://translate.google.nl/translat.../forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=12085&act=url

Regards, Roland
Click to expand...

I haven't had any problems with my helium-neon based LD-660 Laserdisc player, but it doesn't see much use, I have newer diode based LD players for daily use, but its still kind of neat to pull out and use now and again.

I always thought one of the biggest problems to worry about was the off-gassing of helium, didn't know I had to worry about the mirrors coming loose too :-(


EDIT: You were not kidding that is REALLY horribly translated, lol
 
Sony did a similar thing with their audio CD players, converting them to digital CDROM players--I used to have a couple of them, but when 2X players came out, I scrapped them. Those Trantor T130B SCSI adapters with no BIOS or PAL usually came with them.
 
To get at InfoWorld, go to books.google.com Searching is necessary because there is no good method to just browse through the run of the magazine. InfoWorld and ComputerWorld have numerous issues available from the 80s.

I only used the CompuServe version of Groliers a couple of times and that more than 20 years ago so I can't exactly remember the details accurately. But if you can imagine Wikipedia revamped to work with CompuServe's text prompts, you get the approximate feel. Go to the front page prompt, search for an article and then read the article. I vaguely think there were even occasional links to other articles; the online version generated income based on how long you spent there.
 
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Philips CM121 and CM153 controller

Philips CM121 and CM153 controller

Hi! Roland,

I like your video about Philips CM100 CD-Rom drive, I have a Philips CM121 CD-Rom that use the same CM153 controller but I don't have the controller card and a PC that can work with it, do you have any idea what hardware and software I need to get to make it work? where can I buy the CM153 card? Thanks.

Regards,
Nicholas
 
Very cool. A true piece of history. Please, keep us informed on your progress with this interesting device.
 
nick696 said:
Hi! Roland, I like your video about Philips CM100 CD-Rom drive, I have a Philips CM121 CD-Rom that use the same CM153 controller but I don't have the controller card and a PC that can work with it, do you have any idea what hardware and software I need to get to make it work? where can I buy the CM153 card? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hi Nicholas,

I can mail the software, no problem. I've done some research in my
email and my CM153 came from this ebay seller: https://www.ebay.nl/usr/ultradrives
He had some more I'm sure, buy I don't know if he still has them in stock... Just ask :)

This was his site, there is an email address... http://ultradrives.com/

Regards, Roland
 
PeterNC said:
What speed is the CM 121?
Click to expand...

That's what I'm curious about too. And I also would like to know
which Laser mechanism is used. Can you make pictures of the inside?

PeterNC said:
Sound cards only have internal LMSI connectors: not the external
DB15 connector required for external LMSI devices unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Correct, these CM153 cards were the only with this 15 pin interface.
So you really need that card to use it.

Nice player btw, it looks brand new!

A discussion on the usage of CM155 and CM153 cards way back:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.cd-rom/CriS2y3DZz8
 
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PeterNC said:
Supposedly CM 260s with external DB15 headers exist. Corroborated by http://cgi.ebay.com/253863564059.
Based on images of the CM 260 out there you could solder the header to the PCB probably.
Click to expand...

Interesting, would that 16 pin box header be the same interface as the D15 connector on the CM100?
If that's the case it might be possible to make a cable for it for a different interface card...
 
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