I still use them in a HP Vectra dual socket Pentium 75 - a Sony one manufactured in 1994.
Some of these are magnitudes more complex than tray loaders, failing left and right with more years going by. Some had several boards inside moving and shifting with the inserted caddies. I can only guess that this was hell to get right in the earlier days: the cartridge was moving, the loader mechanism was moving and the laser was, sometimes on a separate plane, moving, too.
I remember when, after the trays came up (these were considered just OK), slot loaders took a seat. Everyone I knew who used a caddy drive stared at these things in horror: Yeah, good idea. Let’s pat directly on the surface read by the laser. What could possibly go wrong?
Did not matter in the end. CD prices dropped like a stone and that was it. :-)
There is a linked article that might help with some more. Jewel case seems to help limit fingerprints and dust from the disc. Better mechanisms and mass adoption removed this requirement. In my estimation.
I still don't feel like this article gets to the bottom of this mystery.
One answer I saw might be that the tray mechanisms were too big to fit in a 5.25" bay. The early Mitsumis used a manual tray, but I always assumed this was for cost reasons.
Some of these are magnitudes more complex than tray loaders, failing left and right with more years going by. Some had several boards inside moving and shifting with the inserted caddies. I can only guess that this was hell to get right in the earlier days: the cartridge was moving, the loader mechanism was moving and the laser was, sometimes on a separate plane, moving, too.
I remember when, after the trays came up (these were considered just OK), slot loaders took a seat. Everyone I knew who used a caddy drive stared at these things in horror: Yeah, good idea. Let’s pat directly on the surface read by the laser. What could possibly go wrong?
Did not matter in the end. CD prices dropped like a stone and that was it. :-)
https://tedium.co/2021/03/12/cd-rom-caddy-history/
One answer I saw might be that the tray mechanisms were too big to fit in a 5.25" bay. The early Mitsumis used a manual tray, but I always assumed this was for cost reasons.
My Philips burner from 1992 was tray loading.
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/44095/Philips-CDD-52.../