Re: Our very own CD-ROM (was: Re: Apple2 archive at grind.isca.uiowa.edu)

[fmlin@netcom.com (Frank M. Lin)]

>>I guess I'll have check how much small quantity CD-ROM duplication will
>>cost.  I honestly think it shouldn't be more than $10/disk even with
>>relatively low volume.  
>
>I doubt it. The media alone costs $8 or so (for CD-WO, real CD-ROM does
>not pay for small volume), and on top of that is what a company charges
>you for writing them. I doubt it'll be just in the $5 range. If we can
>sell 100 CDs, it _might_ just drop to say $15 or so per CD ... that
>would be well under $50.

I wasn't thinking of CD-WO.  But conventional CD-ROMs.  I believe they do
volumes as low as 1000, @ less than $10 each.  When the volume gets really
high, you can get it for like $3 each.

Again, somebody need to find out.  :)  But...  let's get the archive going
first.  :)  Has the drive mechanism been decided?  Someone offered to sell
an older series of Micropolis 1 gig for under $800, with 5 year warrenty.
There are speedier 3.5" available, but I think the older series will do.

The newer monsters boasts MTBF time like 500k hours, even 800k hours, but
that's not proven.  Good old series probably have 150k hours rating, but
that's still 15 years plus.  And probably is a more realistic rating.

And with it running over the net, I don't think 15ms vs. 10ms for the new
3.5" is that important.  Transfer rate should be couple of megs too.

-- 
frank m. lin
fmlin@netcom.com