Those things are clearly meant for laptops. It’s always awkward to hook them up to tower PCs. Either you’re bending the short cable to stick them in the top chassis ports and the cable tension pushes it halfway off the case, or your are letting the drive dangle from the back panel ports.
I kinda miss the beefy boys that came with detachable USB cables and their own power supplies.
I just looked up an external 5.25" enclosure for sata disc drives. Nearly $50 and doesn’t even include a drive. That’s crazy.
I’ve got this idea of putting a slim bluray burner in my machine. I got the bay adapter that houses that and 2 2.5" drives but haven’t finished the thought by actually getting the burner. 🤷 It’s probably pointless though.
The portable BR RW I found last year has a USB-C connection on the drive so you can use whatever cable you want.
Though they do make USB extension cables so you don’t have to bend it weird.
I do still miss the chonky boys though, but the nice thing with USB-C is that it doesn’t needs a separate power cable and plug.
I kinda miss the beefy boys that came with detachable USB cables and their own power supplies.
I had an external SCSI CD-ROM drive that used caddies and had physical buttons on it, I used it for a long time as a CD player. It ran off 120.
Lemmings on 3.5" disk, will not ever throw away, too many memories
I still have a box of 5.25" that I won’t throw away.
whoa whoa whoa unreal tournament is retro gaming ?
next you’ll be telling me nirvana is classic rock.
My guy, I’m right there with you. I have a boxed copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 on my shelf, that I bought back in uni… more than half a lifetime ago!
heh same, although I was in college
Boxed UT1999 Game of the Year edition :p
I heard Red hot chili peppers on a classic rock station… Several years ago.
Don’t give a listen to Dexter and the Moonrocks, my guy, they have a song about how the ancient music of the 90s and nirvana in particular crafted who the singer came to be. It made me feel arthritic and shake my fist at the clouds.
well did you take your onion off first?
Take my onion off, what, do you think I’m made of bumblebees?
Mine does.
That parrots sticker! 🦜 🦜 🦜 - classic!
I listened to bits straight off an audio CD yesterday!
Somewhere deep down I’m a dragon. I need to hoard!
You can pry my broken sword 2 CD from my cold, dead hands.
Given that you have a broken sword 2 physical copy, I assume it won’t take very long before we’ll be able to pry it away.
I still have all my discs from 20 years ago.
I also still have all my disks from 30 years ago.
I also still have all my disks from 40 years ago.
and I still have the drives to read them.
One day I will get a disc drive, then we’ll see whos laughing.
Uhh, I still have a functioning dvd drive.
Bart Simpson was 10 in 1989. He would be the POSTER CHILD of collecting cds.
Edit: Marge was 34 in 1989. Oh my god, Marge is a boomer.
He’s also 10 in 2026
They’ve been slowly revising. Fisrt they were boomers. Then they rewrote it to be gen X. Now they’re millennials.
Time just keep on be marching…
I just rebuilt two older systems and installed my optical drives in them. One linux box and one Win 7. It’s honestly great having them back. I’ve started moving some DVD’s and CDs to backup. It was surprising how much better quality a decent bitrate rip of a CD is compared to music streaming services.
I miss the large boxes that video games came in the early 2000s and earlier. The physical media, like manuals, maps, and tech trees were incredible. You couldn’t just alt+tab or check the internet, you had to pin a map to your computer room wall, and keep real notes. Its easier now, but it takes some magic out of the experience.
My teenage bedroom wall was covered in game maps… and Christina Aguilera.
I will not stand for this personal attack. It is not okay that you call me out like this.
My Ryzen tower has a Blu-ray burner…
Mine too. That’s what I spent my one (1) 5.25" external bay on.
The old tower that’s stacked full of other disk drives is in the basement, where I can get to it if I ever need it. I find myself needing it more often than you’d think, usually courtesy of others who just rediscovered some irreplaceable personal thing on some damn fool floppy disk or another that they want back.
Even if your PC doesn’t have a disc drive by default, you can still enjoy the games by getting a USB disc drive. I literally got one originally for my laptop and have been using it with my current desktop. It’s been a good purchase when audacious is allowed to read the disc.
Actually, the few that still get produced are vastly inferior to the 2000s ones via a SATA plug. We are losing the facilities and knowledge, tolerances are far worse now.
Btw, i’ve discovered redumper (from the Redump disc-preservation initiative) if makemkv doesn’t suffice anymore. The old SATA ones chugged along like nothing, while the new-ish ones errored here and there, requiring long correcting runs. All in all, better get some old notebooks than a new USB drive, if you want to go get ripping.
