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
• 1x cd-rom drive with a proprietary controller cost > $400
• Mitsubishi / Mitsumi / Sony / Panasonic each had their own interface

1991 - 1992: Microsoft sets MPC1 standards

• High End System: 50Mhz 486DX CPU w/ Local Bus / 8MB RAM
• 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

1993 - 1994: MPC Level 2 Standard

• High End System: Socket 4&5 Pentium / Mature 486 / 16MB RAM
• 3x & 4x IDE & SCSI CDROM drives arrive at $400 price point.
• IDE drives with higher speeds tend to arrive sooner at lower price points
• CD-Rom drives that used cartridges to hold disks were still common
• Expensive CD-R drives were available at prices over $700

1995 - 1996: MPC Level 3 Standard

• High End System: Socket 7 / Socket 8 / 32MB RAM
• 4x to 12 x IDE CD ROM appear, still using CLV (Constant Linear Velocity)
• Fastest drives enter at the $400 price point, low end drives available for $100
• Tray loading drives displace the cartridge drives
• "El Torito" extension to ISO 9660 provides for bootable CD-Roms
• "Joliet" extension to ISO 9660 allow long unicode filenames
• CD-R drives become affordable, but buffer underruns are a common occurrence on IDE models
• CD-RW drive appear
• Slot Loading CR-Roms appear

1997 - 1999: CAV Drives and DVD-ROMs

• High End System: Slot 1 / Super Socket 7 / 64MB RAM
• CR-ROM drives are a standard feature on new PC builds
• CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) CDROM drives appear with speeds > 12x that quickly ramped up from 24x to 52x and 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
• CDROM 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
• 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
• Floppy drives begin to become rare, leaving optical drives as the primary boot media for installing operating systems

2005 - 2015: Commodity Optical Drives

• Computers: Socket >= 775 / Socket >= AM2
• Early Sata optical drives appear that are Pata drives with a Sata bridge on the controller
• True Sata Super Multi 20x DVD drives replace PATA drives for new builds
• Most DVD drives support all common +/- formats
• BD-ROM drives exist but never become common
• M-Disc arrives in 2009 for people that want archives that last for more than a few years
• Super Multi DVD drives sell for less than $30, DVD-RW less than $50 and BD drives less than $100

2016: "Internet killed the optical star"

• Affordable USB drives and streaming services begin replacing optical drives

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