I have just finished installing a Toshiba CD-ROM with SHAREWARE GRAB-BAG by Alde on my FATHERBOARD North Bulletin Board (302) 737-6041. I am very impressed, so far. I purchased the drive and the Software disk(s) from the Bureau of Electronic Publishing (201) 857-4300 and they have a 30 day money back policy if not satisfied. I also looked at Compact Disk Products (800) MEGABYTe and they had better prices but will not allow the return of opened software. I prefer to look and touch when I am spending my money! CD-ROMs are awesome! 600 Megs for under $700.00 and a usable disk ready to go for under $100.00. My Toshiba cost quite a bit more than that but the SHAREWARE GRAB-BAG was only $99.00. I am not sure how much GRAB-BAG holds in MegaBytes (I have heard 350 Megs) but it does have about 7,000 files on it and comes from a Bulletin Board in Chicago and can be plugged in and installed on PCBoard in about a day or less. The down side of all this. CD-ROMS are a bit slow! The Toshiba is 400 ms, 154 kbs with a 64 K Cache. The fastest is Denon 350 ms, 176 kbs with a 32 K Cache, BUT ONLY A 90 DAY WARRANTY. The slowest is Amdek/Hitachi at 800 ms, 153 kbs with only an 8K Cache. The transfer rate should be no problem since modems can only handle 3.84 kbs maximum (USRobotics HST). Another downer is Grab-Bag has messed up the dates with a year of "00". This is not for my users but it caused a bit of problem for PCBoard (see GRAB-BAG.TXT). There is a wealth of software disks. For Bulletin Boards there is: 1) A lot of Mac stuff, 2) Between Heaven and Hell (some X-Rated graphics), 3) C Library, 4) Computer Library (a year's worth of various Computer Publications, including PC Week and PC Magazine), 5) Graphics Lab (some X-Rated), 6) MicroSoft Programmer's Library, 7) PC-Blue Library, 8) PC-SIG Library (1240 disks but ARCed and requires license for BBS operation), 9) ShareWare Gold (only $79.00), 10) ShareWare Grab-Bag. Beware, all of these disks are CopyRighted! PC-Sig sells for $465.00 and then they want another $15.00 license to run on your board. ALDE (SHAREWARE GRAB-BAG) said when I called them to "have at it and enjoy". ALDE plans to re-press a new disk every 12 to 18 months. Now as far as the speed. I ran some benchmarks on an 8088 with a Sony drive (500+ ms, 150 kbs, and only 8 K Cache). The benchmarks consisted of copying a 1,655 byte file from CD-ROM and an old 20 Meg Hard Disk to a floppy and likewise a 63,073 byte file. CD-ROM to floppy Hard Disk to floppy 1,655 bytes 3.19 sec 2.63 sec 63,073 bytes 18.73 sec 6.43 sec Your guess is as good as mine, but I think the CD-ROM will easily keep up with modem speeds. A danger as I see it is multiple nodes (I am only running one so far) accessing an inner and an outer file simultaneously, might slow things down considerably, don't know. I have not benchmarked my Toshiba yet on my 286 (lazy and busy) and it would be rather meaningless to compare it to the 8088 with a Sony. Watch the warranties and the CopyRights! My Toshiba has a 1 year Warranty while Denon has only 90 days. All are supposed to be something like 50,000 or 100,000 hours of expected life (MTBF), about the same as Hard Disks these days. There are a number of other Bulletin Boards using CD-ROMs including: FATHERBoard North (GRAB-BAG) 302-737-6041 Star Glider (GRAB-BAG, RBBS IN A BOX, and PC-SIG 804-266-5390 Jeff Kosko (?) 913-469-8500 Royal BBS (PC-SIG) 302-674-3531 Many CD-ROMs are SCSIs (I have even heard all are)! My Toshiba is a full SCSI and allows me to daisy-chain up to 8 drives off of the one controller (possibly even a Hard-Disk but I haven't tried that yet). Some brands (AMDEK, HITACHI, and SONY) use a serial hook-up (possibly SCSI too) but allow only 4 to be daisy chained. All in all CD-ROMS appear to be a blessing for Bulletin Boards and many other applications. They are a lot cheaper than huge Hard Disks, save a lot of work, and back-ups involve simply ordering another disk. Call FATHERBOARD North (302) 737-6041 and try mine in Conference #11 for the moment (a quick and dirty installation). I may be moving it around a bit later on but will try to keep callers posted thru news and bulletins. Don Clevenger, SYSOP, FATHERBOARD North