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Slot Loading CD Drives

They're around, but certainly MUCH less common than tray-loaders. And since tray-loaders are the de facto standard, most manufacturers don't bother with a second product line that does the exact same thing in a different form factor.

I'm not sure if slot-loaders are more expensive, or less reliable, or people just didn't like them, or what. But they never really caught on. I know I'm not crazy about them, because it's harder to put the disks in and out with smudging them. Makes me wish they had gone with a jacketed optical media format; CDs and DVDs are too easy to scratch up. And Blu-Ray/HD-DVD seem to be the same. Maybe the next-next-gen ones will use a better format...
 
i hope they are dead.... for pcs at least

ive had 2 slot pioneer dvd/cd drives for my pc. both have died. (one was an older model and one was the newest)
ive never had a drive die on me.. i even got a damn external 2x cd burner thats 10 years old that still works fine.

😛
 
i personally like slot-loading, takes up less physical space for loading/unloading and plus it's cool 🙂

I got a slot-loading cdrw/dvd combo drive on my gateway m505x, a rebadged Gigabyte N601. The higher model, model m505xl, has a slot-loading DVD-RW. Apparently these are the same slot-loading drives used by the Powerbooks too!
 
I think that it'd be better just because you wouldn't have to worry about the tray, but I guess not. And I agree with Matthias. Why wouldn't they have made jacketed versions of cd's. Kinda like the new floppies. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: harrkev
I am not sure (having never owned one), but I do not think that a slot-loader can handle a mini-cd.
Click to expand...

Actually, this question came up recently in GH, and apparently the newer slot-loading drives (like the one in the new Mac Powerbook) can handle the smaller CD/DVDs without a problem. Older drives, however, did not always like them.

I, too, remember the old cartridge-loading CD drives. Good idea, bad implementation. The cartridges were a PITA to get the CDs in and out of, and unless you bought one for each CD you owned, it took a good 30-60 seconds to swap CDs in and out of your drive (get the cartridge out of the PC, find the case for the first CD, put that one in its case, find the new CD, get that one out of its case and into the cartridge, put the cartridge back into the PC). It would have been a heck of a lot smarter to just put the CDs in a cheap, thin plastic casing (like a 3.5" floppy) to begin with. I guess the issue is that CDs were originally developed for music applications (and back in the early 80s, to boot), and nobody back then thought it through (or expected them to catch on so widely and be used with computers).
 
I was thinking of this recently, as i was somewhat fond of the slot loaders....i think one of the bigger issues with it was that they generate a lot more noise than a standard tray load...last time i checked the only manufacturer offering a slot load cd drive was Pioneer...
 
Funny thing is if they redesigned the DVD's and CD's slot loaders into "cartridges" with the disc inside, you'd never have to fumble around with putting discs back in their cases, considering I only buy blanks that come with Cases it's actually kind of incredible that we "baby" the discs when we hold them (as not to smudge ot get fingerprints on them) rather then have them locked away in a cartridge form factor and never have to worry about "putting the disc back in its case".
 
Originally posted by: Gannon
Funny thing is if they redesigned the DVD's and CD's slot loaders into "cartridges" with the disc inside, you'd never have to fumble around with putting discs back in their cases, considering I only buy blanks that come with Cases it's actually kind of incredible that we "baby" the discs when we hold them (as not to smudge ot get fingerprints on them) rather then have them locked away in a replaceable cartridge form factor and never have to worry about "putting the disc back in its case".
Click to expand...

my opinion added, if you don't mind.

CD.
 
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