PowerCD

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Apple's PowerCD equipped with remote and speakers.

The back of the PowerCD with SCSI and A/V out ports.

The base for the PowerCD which is required to use the device at all.

Apple's PowerCD was a portable CD player released by Apple in 1993. It was capable of playing Audio CDs, Photo CDs, and was also able to be hooked up to a PowerBook for use as a single-speed ("1x", 150K/sec) CD-ROM drive via a SCSI port. You can power the PowerCD through it's base with 6 AA batteries or through a 12v AC adapter. The PowerCD has it's main function buttons on the face of the unit for easy access with a small backlight LCD display for displaying audio track information.

The internals of the unit were manufactured by Philips.

Retail price at time of introduction was $499.

The PowerCD was never a particularly good CD-ROM drive for Mac users. The drive itself, unlike most SCSI devices, required a device driver and getting it to work on a given mac of the era was sometimes rather tricky.

1 Features
2 Supported formats
3 Notes
4 External Links

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Features

Single Speed CD-ROM
Can be used as a SCSI CD-ROM drive
Photo CD playback via included TV cable
Runs on 6 AA batteries for mobility
View photos on TV via included cable
Can be controlled remotely with included Apple Remote

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Supported formats

PhotoCD
Audio CD
CD-ROM (When connected to a computer)

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Notes

Without the "base/stand" of the unit the PowerCD is completely useless. The base somehow converts a standard 25 pin SCSI port to an adapter with a bay for 6 AA batteries and a 12V AC power socket. Power going to the main unit is needed to work, even when connected to a computer.

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