I have always wondered why you couldn’t use the CD ROM drive in most computers to play back audio CDs even when the computer wasn’t turned on. It just sort of made sense, back in the days when owning an optical disc drive was a far-out luxury, to be able to squeeze every bit of usability out of our expensive equipment.
Now, years later, a company called Skyhawk has released the ‘Power One’ power supply, that feeds power to CD (and DVD) drives, even when the machines aren’t running. That means you can listen to music all the time, which would be great, except it uses a separate audio out from the one your PC speakers are already plugged into and most modern optical drives no longer has a ‘Play’ button, let alone a ‘skip track’ feature. It’s a great idea that’s only 15 years too late.
Skyhawk Power One [TomsHardware]
