CD Jukeboxes

[Tom Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

I am now the proud possessor of two 500 disk Poineer DRM-5004x CD 
Jukeboxes.  It is a not so long story.  Ron Wickersham sent me a note 
telling me these were available surplus for $350 each.  I could not resist 
and thinking I would send one on to Ron I ordered two of them.

Today a big truck pulled up.  About 500# of stuff was unloaded.  I had been 
looking at desk top CD units and did not think much about the size.  500 is 
a lot of disks.  So the unit is refrigerator size.

So far I have only gotten part way into the box, but the suspicion is that 
it comes with no documentation or software.  Besides the changer mechanism, 
it comes with two 4x CD readers.  I suspect that one might be able to 
change out to faster units.

The control is SCSI.  You can find out more by searching on DRM-5004X using 
Google.  I quickly found a lot.  It would appear that I will need software 
to do the simplest things.

Possibly one of you uses such drives in their work.  Possibly someone knows 
how to select software for this unit.  I would be willing to buy commercial 
software to run these units from a Linux box if that is possible.  Possibly 
one of you can get hold of a service manual for this device.

Note that I already have enough good data on disk to fill both of these 
units.

I suspect that I have purchased two white elephants.  Still, nice to have a 
pair if I do make use of one of them.

You will be amused that I get a 90 day warranty.  To activate it I send in 
a letter to ***IBM*** with which Pioneer has arranged to provide 
service.  If it do this, then an IBM service representative will show up 
promptly when I need service.  No doubt one service call will cost more 
than both units.

Tom Droege