On 27 Jun 98 at 14:48, Joshua Martin wrote:

> I am building my first computer and I almost got it all planned out
> except one thing. I trying to figure out what I want concerning drives.
>
> I know I need a A drive and a cd-rom drive. But what about a cd-r
> drive instead?

  It has gotten very hard to find CD-R drives; they've pretty much
been replaced by CD-RW drives (which can also do CD-R).
  Thing is, you're paying a goodly chunk extra for those writing
mechanisms, and so wearing them out using the drive as a reader is
not a real great idea.  And without a separate CD-ROM drive, it will
be painful to try and duplicate any of your CDs (not that you would
do anything to violate copyrights, you understand...).
  For $50, you should be able to put a pretty decent CD-ROM drive on
the system.  For less than $100, you could instead add a 4-disc
changer, so your current favourite games and reference works can be
available at a moment's notice.

David G