A first in rewriteable CD drive technology will be shown by Yamaha Systems Technology at Comdex Spring '99 and Windows World '99 in Chicago next week.

The new Yamaha CRW6416S is the world's first and only 6X recorder with 4X rewritability, according to the company. For recording at 6X, the drives use widely available, low cost CDR media. The 4X rewriting speed is executed using 4X compatible CD-RW media.

The new drive is expected to be available in production quantities in June. The CRW6416S uses SCSI-2 I/F, maximum 10 MB/second burst transfer rate (synchronous transfer) and incorporates the newest Yamaha LSI chip set and optical head.

More information on the CD recorder products is posted at http://www.yamahayst.com .