So when?

[Buck]

When do we get SATA optical devices? Including SATA hard drives is nice, but if you still have to mess around with PATA CD and DVD drives, what's the point? Plus, as a remark from Tannin's thread about Windows requiring drivers to be loaded from floppies during installation, when will Windows be fully USB 2.0 aware during install, so that we don't need floppies? We could just use external drives, like a pen drive.

Once you eliminate all flat ribbon cables, you've finally made a big step in system design. Until then, changing the cable type for one device just makes it a novelty.

 

[Mercutio]

Middle of 2004, from what I've read.

 

[Computer Generated Baby]

When do we get SATA optical devices? Including SATA hard drives is nice, but if you still have to mess around with PATA CD and DVD drives, what's the point?

SATA optical (CD / DVD readers and writer) have been show in public more than once before, but it seems nobody is now willing to release the hardware until SATA"2" spec hardware is out so that they are removable and external. Even with the older demos using SATA"1" spec'd optiçals, the performance and capability was superb -- as in what you'd expect from a good SCSI unit.

Plus, as a remark from Tannin's thread about Windows requiring drivers to be loaded from floppies during installation, when will Windows be fully USB 2.0 aware during install, so that we don't need floppies? We could just use external drives, like a pen drive.

I can load Windows 2000 drivers (not NT 4, or earlier) from a "non-floppy" er.. floppy disc drive. I this case, an LS-120 drive, which is an ATAPI floppy.

Booting from a USB Pen Drive is a capability that is currently being developed.

 

[CougTek]

Booting from a USB Pen Drive is a capability that is currently being developed.

The TwinMOS pen drives I sold a lot starting last Spring were bootable. Motherboard has to support booting from odd devices though.

 

[Jan Kivar]

You can boot DOS from those pen drives, perhaps even Win9x. Win2k/XP needs drivers (boot mode/kernel, that is). It's just a matter of how the pen drive is emulated, and what the motherboard's BIOS supports; USB FDD, USB HDD and/or USB CD-ROM.

Cheers,

Jan