Evan Kleiman
- 2000.12.13
Q. All of my friends that have PCs are always talking about CDs
they've burnt with their computers, but I don't have a CD burner in
my iMac. What can I do about this?
A. Unfortunately, for a long time, Apple has not offered a CD-R
(Compact Disc-Recordable) or CD-RW (Compact Disc-ReWritable) drive
as an option. And because of this, they lost many potential sales
and profits, because many people wanted this option on their iMac
or other Macintosh computer. However, last Tuesday Steve Jobs
announced that he will be including CD-R as an option on some new
Macs. But what do you do until then? Well, you do have some
options.
This first option is the only one for iMac users, such as
myself: an external USB or FireWire CD-R drive. Since USB is
limited to 680 Kbps, the only real option for speed-conscience iMac
owners is a FireWire CD-R or CD-RW drive. You can pick one up at
places like
MacMall and Outpost.com for around $300. It's a
steep price right now, but since this technology is still somewhat
new, it can be somewhat costly.
Another option is installing an internal CD-R or CD-RW drive in
your Mac. VST makes a nice one for about $350. However, there are
many down sides to this. You can't install one of these on any iMac
or the Cube, and installing it on a Mac with a free drive bay can
be somewhat confusing.
In the end, for awhile at least, you'll have only a few options
if you want to record music with your computer. It seems that the
cheapest and easiest option may be just to wait and get it
installed by Apple on your next computer.
Further Reading
- How Can I Burn a CD?, Chris Lawson,
Mac Daniel, 4/4/2000
- Burning CDs, Scott L.
Barber, Online Tech Journal. Hints on burning CDs with older Power
Macs and SCSI burners.
Evan Kleiman has been writing for Low End Mac since January
1999. He also runs his own site, Evansite. Evan uses an iMac,
along with some vintage hardware. You can read more about his
computing experience in The Many Macs of
Evan Kleiman.
