Pioneer DRM602X 6 Disc External CD ROM Changer Tutorial

A tutorial video of a fully working External Pioneer DRM602X CD-ROM changer from 1994, in this video I will demonstrate and operate this old school drive of mine, hope you enjoy :)
Music in this video is made by me and are both wips and final songs, as there are many different tracks here i will list only a few here that are key tracks in this video. naturally you may also visit my music channel to listen to all my published songs anytime :)
/ powertoastmusic
Prophet Of time
• Prophet Of Time - Powe...
Jump The Floor
• Jump The Floor - Power...
Bassus
• Bassus (Basstrack) Pow...
Potato Mark2
• Potato Mark2 - Powerto...
if any other questions regarding my music shows up don't hesitate to ask me.
Thanks for watching and like and subscribe my channels for more stuff in the future

[@douro20]

The nicest thing about Pioneer CD changers, other than their reliability, is the fact that a new magazine purchased off the shelf today will work in units made all the way back to 1984.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

douro20 indeed but why change something that works right

[@jessihawkins9116]

they still make these magazines? 😆

[@douro20]

@@jessihawkins9116 Yes.

[@douro20]

The DRM-600A was the world's first CD-ROM changer- a SCSI drive which cost nearly $2000 back in 1989.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

Yep. They were expensive for sure but I have not really gotten any decent information about my model how much it can be worth or what it cost back when it was new. Rare devices have rare information lol

[@JamesT65]

I had 10 of these on my BBS back in 94 awesome bit of kit for the time.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

Ten of them in 94 that was quite some serious stuff to have then. I can feel and hear the money turn and scatter like my bills today on a daily basis for years to come. But they make themselves pretty good for audio CDs but are so slow for data. But a pretty nifty concept anyway

[@jessihawkins9116]

no way you had 10. you would’ve had to have two scsi cards and there would’ve been 60 drive letters. C’mon man 👨🏼‍🦳

[@worldgate989]

I feel like someone is telling a tall tale.

[@paulkhoury3160]

Nice video. I picked up one of these from the Houston Computer Museum's closure two years ago. I'll probably sell mine on ebay, but prefer SCSI CD-ROMs for my vintage computers. And Sweden is a nice country. Hoping to visit my best friend there later this year.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

Neat. I think these drives are pretty scarce these days so it should be a pretty easy thing to sell if you so desire for a decent price. I actually picked out my drive from the storage and gonna see how it holds up some day again. I might just put it where I have my computer with a scsi card installed. I actually do have an external Sun scsi drive that is almost the same size as the cd-rom drive. Not just as high though. I run this with a 10K rpm drive for the fun of it. They should do pretty well together :) I think I could even daisy chain them together if I want. Never tried that yet though

[@donellismusic]

That is super cool!!

[@ryanpascual9598]

"LaserMemory" That's rare

[@Pulverrostmannen]

yes this is a pretty rare device :)

[@ryanpascual9598]

@@Pulverrostmannen I know. First, there's LaserDisc Now, LaserMemory!? Is that what maked it rare?

[@Pulverrostmannen]

Ryan Pascual it’s because it’s supporting both audio and Data disks with the 6 disk tray system. It reads 2X for Data so it takes decades to read one disk into computer. Also since it’s external and uses the SCSI cable you need a controller card with this external port to use it. All together it’s very rare to get a working one since it was not very common to begin and I never saw one of these anywhere until I got mine. The nifty part of this is that when playing audio you can control the playback with a computer and then have your amplifier connected directly to the cd changer which eliminated the need for a good audio card in the computer to play your cd-music

[@jessihawkins9116]

I have 4 or 5 of these I use with my old 486 and Macs. I also have the 18 disc version I’m going to set up with my old Mac file server. I have pioneer laserdisc and the pioneer magneto optical drives also.

[@Skarfar90]

What a nice old piece of hardware :) I also noticed an old computer in the background.. I got to ask, is that an AST Advantage? Btw.. Based on your nickname, i'd say you are from either Norway or Sweden

[@Pulverrostmannen]

thank you! Sweden is correct! that is why I tend to stutter a bit when I talk in my videos he he. I suppose you mean the Desktop computer behind the one I film there, it is a Siemens Nixdorf Scenic 5H PCI, it is equipped with a Pentium 120Mhz :) I play the most picky Dos games on that computer because it eats all titles no other computer I got wanna play

[@stefanog6132]

Hello! exist a way to connect and use a this pioneer DRM602X with a current Windows 7/10/11 PC?

[@Pulverrostmannen]

Hi. That is a great question actually. It is something I never tried myself but in theory it should be possible to do if you have a SCSI interface with a connector that both works with the computer and CD-Rom device. I don’t think you would need any specific drivers for it as long as you can hook it up on a hardware level. It would be fun to know if this works. Maybe I should try it myself if possible. Not sure if I have any win7 compatible interface around though

[@worldgate989]

Do these units require any special software to run or is it just a bunch of drive letters?

[@Pulverrostmannen]

At least under win98 it did not require any drivers except for the SCSI controller card to work. It will assign a drive letter for each drive and load the one you try to access which is very slow in reality along with the 2x read speed. It work pretty well as a CD player for music as it has it’s own outputs etc

[@lez7875]

um salve do Brasil + like. e funciona bem

[@jessihawkins9116]

Pioneer made a single disc adapter for their audio cd changers. Would this adapter work in this cd rom changer since the audio/cd-rom magazines are interchangeable 🤔

[@Pulverrostmannen]

Interesting thought, I think this cassette is the same as on the CD changers for audio so I would not be surprised if it would work to use a single disc cassette instead. But i don’t have one to test that with unfortunately

[@jessihawkins9116]

@@Pulverrostmannen I’m almost sure they are the same magazine. The CD-ROM ones have a white face though. I have the 6 disc cd changers and the CD-ROM changers. I have one of the 18 disc changers that take three magazines. I thought it would be nice to have one of them set up as a single disc. I’d also like to get one set up on my Roland sampler but its pick and I don’t think it would work 😕

[@Pulverrostmannen]

@@jessihawkins9116 indeed. I should pull mine out again and see if it’s still healthy. But it is infuriating slow in what ever you use it for except for audio discs. I mean it does work for data cd but it reads like double speed only but for audio it is completely fine. Almost like a normal cd changer

[@blackboxrecords2326]

could you use the pinoeer together with a sampler, let's say an akai s5000 ?

[@Pulverrostmannen]

I never tried it that way but if it was scripted it would probably do it but it is a slow dinosaur. It only read 2x and changes disc slow so it would probably not be a good experience even if it could do it

[@jessihawkins9116]

yeah that’s what I want to know 🤔

[@jessihawkins9116]

I have an old nubus Mac with a sample cell card and sound tools I’m going to use mine with but I’m curious about if it would show up as separate drives on a sampler without any drivers. Roland S50 Roland S550 Roland W30 Roland DJ70 Roland VP9000 Nubus sample cell