CD-ROM players can be had for as little as $200. The latest bargain is from the DAK Industries mail-order catalog. The drive does not come bundled with any CDs except a program that allows one to pull music through the drive, and a utility program to permit one to start CDs from a menu. However, for $49 extra, one can get a set of three CD data discs. Included among the three is the 1991 edition of Microsoft Bookshelf, which itself contains five research volumes: the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, the 1991 World Almanac, Roget's Thesaurus, the American Heritage Dictionary, and Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. The three-disc set also has a medical reference volume called the Family Doctor and a color graphics chess game Battle Chess.
The Drive itself is a rather large outboard unit about twice the size of the typical 5 1/4 inch CD-ROM drive. It comes with an interface card that must be plugged into an expansion slot inside the compu and a cable to connect it to the drive. Its access speed is listed at 800 milliseconds, which is not nearly as fast as some of the newer drives, but for $200 is not bad. DAK also has a special offer on Software Toolwork's CD-ROM titles: US Atlas, World Atlas, and Chessmaster 3000 for $39.90.
And there are other bargain options. A mail-order house called Tenex has an internal CD-ROM player, which fits in a disk drive bay inside the computer, for $199. The drive is not labeled, but it may be Curtis-Mathes. The company also offers an external model that looks exactly like the DAX for $289.
Damark, the liquidator catalogue, is offering an internal CD-ROM drive for $299. It comes with an atlas and an encyclopedia. It carries the Curtis-Mathes brand name. Its access time is estimated at 600 milliseconds.
With this sort of price competition breaking out, makers of Sony, NEC, and other big-brand drives will be under tense pressure to cut their prices for their units, most of which have access times of 350-400 milliseconds.
[Contact: DAK: (800) 325-0800; Tenex: (800) 776-6781; Damark: (800) 729-9000.]
