"By “dock” you mean the Interface Unit? Yes, that’s required. The CD-ROM drive won’t be, though one of the options I’m considering is placing the ODE inside gutted drive case."
"I might actually not be able to keep up that ‘summer’ delivery date for PCE photos but those shouldn’t be too badly delayed. I meant it when I said ‘in working state’. The problem is the analog audio amplifier part, I might choose to cut it out of the PCB and redo later, and just focus on the digital part and more testing now."