September 17, 1992


This is the release of the Always Technology CD-ROM driver.  Please
follow the instructions below for installation.  If you have any
difficulties or suggestions, please let us know.

Please check with the Always BBS for updates to this driver.  The
Always BBS can be reached at (818) 597-0275.  This driver has
been tested with the following drives:

     Sony CDU-541; Chinon CDS-431; Toshiba XM-3201B & 3301B
     NEC CDR-36 & 84; Texel DM-5020 & 5024

Audio is supported on all of the above devices.  However, in this
release, Windows Media player does not work with the Chinon drive.
This should be fixed soon.

Additionally, customers have reported success using this driver
with other CD-ROM drives.  If you test with a drive not on this
list, please let us know the manufacturer and model number of the
driver, and the results of your tests.  If there are any
additional drives you would like to see support for, please let
us know that too.

Attach the CD drive to your system, as described in the
installation guide.  Pay particular attention to avoid SCSI ID
conflicts, and to bus termination.  The drive must be attached
and powered on when the driver is loaded, in order to access the
drive.

Using CD-Roms under DOS requires two separate "drivers".  The
first driver is the adapter interface, (CDROM.SYS) included on
this disk.  The other "driver" is the Microsoft CD Extensions
(MSCDEX.EXE), and is supplied by your drive manufacturer.

To install the driver, add the following line to your system's
CONFIG.SYS file:

     DEVICE=C:\CDROM.SYS [/D:name]

Note that the parameter /D:name is optional, and allows you to
assign a different name to the driver.  The default name is
"ALWAYSCD".  The name assigned is used later when loading MSCDEX
to identify a driver to the MSCDEX utility.  After adding the
above line, you must re-boot your system for the change to take
affect.

When the driver is loaded by DOS, a message will be displayed,
giving the driver name and version.  The number of CD-Rom drives
found will then be displayed.  If the driver states that no
drives have been found, verify the installation, and check that
power to the drive is on.  After correcting the problem, re-boot
the machine. The drive must be found at boot time and reported by
the driver to be usable.

Once the system is running, and a DOS prompt is displayed, you
must load the Microsft CD Extensions (MSCDEX).  At the DOS
prompt, type the following line:

     MSCDEX /D:ALWAYSCD

If you changed the default driver name (using the /D:name option)
in your CONFIG.SYS file, use the same name here, in place of
"ALWAYSCD".

MSCDEX will display the drive letter(s) assigned to your ROM
devices.  Use those letters as you would any other drive letter
under DOS.  MSCDEX has a number of options for controlling data
buffering, which will enhance performance.  See the MSCDEX
documentation for more details.


HISTORY: Date    Version      Comment

         920917  VCN: 330-7   Changed version number.  
                              Issued as a release.

          920905    Beta 0.8  Fixs to support Mammals CD
                              Fixes for Windows media player
                              Matrixing and volume for Mammals
                              Added audio for Toshiba XM-3301
                              Audio for Texel DM-5024/3024

          920504    Beta 0.7  Audio support for NEC CDR-3x/7x
                              drives.

          920110    Beta 0.5  Some audio support for Chinon
                              CDS-431

                              Fixed bug where drive was not seen
                              in combination with certain other
                              devices

          910916    Beta 0.4  Fixed hang problem when no IN-2000
                              installed

                              Support for NEC CDR-35

          910910    Beta 0.3  Audio support for Sony CDU-541.     
                              Chinon CDS-431