Optical drive

Rise and fall of ISO 9660

1989 - 1990: ISO 9660 Optical drives first reach the consumer market

• High End System: 33MHz 386 or any 486 computer / 4MB RAM / 80MB HD
• 1x cd-rom drive with a proprietary controller cost > $400
• Each vendor had their own interface (Mitsubishi / Mitsumi / Sony / Panasonic / Philips )
• Most CD-Rom drives used cartridges to hold disks, and then the cartridge would go into the drive

1991 - 1992: Microsoft sets MPC1 standards

• High End System: 50Mhz 486DX CPU w/ Local Bus / 8MB RAM / 200MB HD
• 2x CD Rom Drives (Twice as Fast!!)
• IDE & SCSI CDROM interfaces begin to replace proprietary interfaces
• Most new soundcards contain an IDE or SCSI interface for attaching an Optical drive
• Affordable tray based drives ("The Cup holder") become more common

1993 - 1994: MPC Level 2 Standard

• High End System: 486 >= 100Mhz / Socket 4 & 5 Pentium / 16MB RAM / 500MB HD
• 3x & 4x IDE & SCSI CDROM drives arrive at ~$500 price point.
• IDE drives with higher speeds tend to arrive sooner at lower price points
• Expensive 1x & 2x CD-R burners were available at prices over $700, take 30+ minutes to burn a full disk

1995 - 1996: MPC Level 3 Standard

• High End System: Socket 7 / Socket 8 / 32MB RAM / 2 GB HD
• 6x to 12x IDE CD ROM appear, still using CLV (Constant Linear Velocity)
• Fastest drives enter at the $400 price point, low end drives available for $100
• "El Torito" extension to ISO 9660 provides for bootable CD-Roms
• "Joliet" extension to ISO 9660 allow long unicode filenames
• 4x CD-R drives become affordable and can burn a full disk in less than 20 minutes, but buffer underruns are a common occurrence, especially if you multitask with an IDE burner
• CD-RW drive appear priced at > $500
• Slot Loading CR-Roms appear

1997 - 1999: CAV Drives and DVD-ROMs

• High End System: Slot 1 / Super Socket 7 / 64MB RAM / 20GB HD
• Optical drives are a standard feature on new PC builds, no longer a specialty item.
• CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) CDROM drives appear with 16x speeds and quickly ramp up to 52x. They were often quite loud.
• ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) becomes official, adding removable media features to the ATA protocol
• 1x & 2x DVD-ROM appear
• Affordable CD-R drives that work reliably are available
• CD-ROM prices drop to $50 for a low end drive, $100 for a high speed drive and $200 for an 8x CD-R burner
• DVD-ROM (Up to 10x ) appear, quickly dropping in price to less than $400
• DVD-RW (Versions < 1.2) appear near the end of this period

2000 - 2004: Writeable DVDs mature

• Computers: Socket 370 / Slot A / Socket A / Socket 423 / Socket 754 / Socket 939 / 1-2GB RAM & 120GB HD
• DVD-ROM drives replace CD-ROMS as the most common optical drive on a new computer
• DVD-ROM speeds pass 10x
• DVD-RW Version 1.2 appears as the standard matures
• DVD+R / DVD+RW appear
• DVD drives become commodity items with prices well below $100
• Optical drives replace floppy drives as the primary boot media for installing operating systems

2005 - 2009: Commodity Optical Drives

• Computers: Socket >= 775 / Socket >= AM2 / 2-4GB RAM & 500GB HD
• Early Sata optical drives appear that use Pata chipsets with a Sata bridge on the controller, not ideal performance
• True Sata Super Multi DVD drives with 20x speeds soon replace PATA drives and Bridged drives for new builds
• Most DVD writers support all common +/- formats
• BD-ROM drives exist and are affordable, but never become common
• M-Disc media for archives that last for more than a few years
• Super Multi DVD drives sell for less than $40, DVD-RW less than $60
• CD-Music sales plummet (https://www.statista.com/chart/12950/cd-sales-in-the-us/ )

2010 - 2016: The Decline

• Computers: Age of I3, I5, I7 CPUs with 8GB RAM, Sata SSD & 1TB HD
• New computers still sold with optical drives, but were no longer necessary
• Affordable large USB drives replace optical drives for operating system installation
• Download services surpass physical media for software distribution
• DVD & BluRay Video sales plummet ( https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/dvd-and-blu-ray-sales-nearly-halved-over-five-years-mpaa-report-says/)

2017 --> : Obsolescence

• Computers: Tablets and thin light laptops with NVME SSD & Cloud storage
• Ain't no space in a tiny computer for the optical drive
• High end desktops still have optical drives for compatibility purposes

This is a list of all CD/DVD drives in the wiki

Device	Bus type	Bus version	Bus speed	CD read	CD read	CD-R	CD-R	CD-RW	DVD	Transport	Discs	Line out	SPDIF
Matsushita CW-7503	SCSI	SCSI-2	10 MHz	20 x	3 MB/s 20 x	8 x	1.2 MB/s 8 x	0 x	0 x	Tray	1		None