Flashcard solution for Apple II?

[+wood_jl]

Atari8: Sdrive, SIO2SD, SIO2PC, SIO2whatever....

 

C64: 1541 Ultimate, uIEC, etc.....

 

TI-99/4A: CF7+

 

Atari ST: HxC Floppy Emulator

 

Amiga: WHDLoad, HxC Floppy Emulator

 

Apple II: ????????????????????????????????

 

 

I remember reading about one somewhere - long time ago - not done, not available, some problem. I've always kind of wanted a IIe - that's the one that I would want. The IIplus is the one I remember from being a little kid, but IIe is close enough and I want lower case...ha ha. IIgs interesting but not interesting enough.

 

Does anybody know about some kind of SD-card thing to read the floppy images? As popular as those machines are, I would think there'd be a choice of these devices by now. On the other hand, the II is so easy to emulate that it does work well that way. Call me silly, but I like the real machine in front of me.

More importantly, does anybody HAVE ONE of these devices?

Thx.

[+remowilliams]

Well there's a few things in development or no longer in production in the general disk image usage area. There is (and probably others):

 

The SVD: I've had one for a long time, works great, single drive only. No longer in production.

 

iDisk: Interesting, but more limited than I'd want.

 

The CFFA3000: An image serving, floppy emulating version of the CFFA HD CF card, looks fantastic and I've been following this one for a while. Not yet produced.

[Mirage]

I'll be waiting for that CFFA3000! I'd finally get out my IIe setup for the first time since a quick test when I got it. Sweet!

[JamesD]

I have the last revision of the older CFFA board and if its anywhere near the same quality, the CFFA3000 should be well worth the wait.

[+wood_jl]

The CFFA3000: An image serving, floppy emulating version of the CFFA HD CF card, looks fantastic and I've been following this one for a while. Not yet produced.

 

Now THIS is what I'm talkin' about! WOW!

 

Thank you for the info. I just figured the Apple II was so much more popular than the Atari that there'd be a lot of these things. Maybe retro-computer enthusiasts are a dying breed?

 

Thanks for the info! Will have to keep an eye out.

[Mirage]

 

Thank you for the info. I just figured the Apple II was so much more popular than the Atari that there'd be a lot of these things. Maybe retro-computer enthusiasts are a dying breed?

 

 

Maybe the Apple II was more popular, but I don't know that is still is. That would be the key. And no, I don't think we're a dying breed. It seems to me that the retrocomputer releases, both hardware and software, are becoming more frequent, not less.

[Cebus Capucinis]

ADTpro + Asimov + Serial Cable (or in my case 2 Audio Cables) + 2 blank floppies = every Apple // game ever. It is pure MAGIC.

[Tempest]

ADTpro + Asmiov + Serial Cable (or in my case 2 Audio Cables) + 2 blank floppies = every Apple // game ever. It is pure MAGIC.

Yep that's what I do. Unfortunately you need to write the game to a disk before you can play it so it's not particularly fast but it works. I've also had some compatibility issues but I'm not sure if the problem was a bad dump or ADT.

 

My kingdom for a working Crisis Mountain!

 

Tempest

[Cebus Capucinis]

I'm using 2 audio cables and the cassette feature. Hook it up to the front jacks on my Vista machine and it's really easy! I am actually surprised at the speed, the readme said it would take 15-20 minutes per disk image using audio transfer, but I've really seen times of 5-7 minutes transferring via audio.

 

It's a lot like waiting for a C64 disk to load in my opinion....just goof off on the 'net for a little while until the disk image loads. I've only tried 5 or so disk images so far but have had absolutely no problems writing, no errors, nothing. It's been smooth and easy. I'm really impressed with it.

 

If you have the patience I would suggest this route -- it's not as fast as an SD card would be, and you have to do it one image per disk, but it's got the entire library available and it's not too bad!

[Tempest]

Oh wow ADTPro now works with the Uthernet card. I can do transfers via ethernet now!

 

Tempest

[+remowilliams]

I just figured the Apple II was so much more popular than the Atari that there'd be a lot of these things.

The Apple II has seen a whole lot of different cards, expansions, etc designed for it in modern times, but oddly floppy image devices are just about non existent. Also odd is the lack of a really good set of protected format imaging tools, like other classic platforms have.

 

I'd highly suggest anyone interested in purchasing a CFFA3000 email the developer at his website and let him know.

[Hatta]

ADTPro is amazing, but still requires disks. When I got my IIgs, I immediately went and spent more on disks than I did the whole computer. Not that I'm complaining, it's well worth the investment. Another promising tool is the Apple Game Server. It won't run disk images yet, but single file games are well supported. It uses the same cable you'd use with ADTPro. I've also had some luck using ADTPro to dump disk images to the RAM disk in my IIgs. You only get one RAM disk though, so single sided games are all you can do that way. If you want to play a 4 sided game like Wasteland you've got to have the disks.

 

What surprises me is that there's no solution for the Apple II that would let you emulate a floppy drive with your PC. Something like the SIO2PC, or X1541. Something that would plug into your PCs parallel port and your Apples disk drive port would be fantastic. A simple cable and a commodity PC seems like a much more permanent solution than these small run flash devices.

Edited April 8, 2010 by Hatta

[Retro Rogue]

When you guys are mentioning ADT + Asimov, are you referring to the Asimov ftp site? Or is there some other software with that name now as well?

Edited April 8, 2010 by wgungfu

[Cebus Capucinis]

Yeah, ADTpro in conjunction with all the disk images at the Asimov FTP site!

[Retro Rogue]

I have an Apple III with no software, have to try it out.

[akator]

Those CFFA3000 cards are definitely cool... but I've limited my collection to an Apple //c. Obviously, it doesn't have internal card slots. I've searched, but found nothing similar to a drive emulator or multicard for it. Does anyone know of something that I've missed?

[+remowilliams]

Update on the CFFA3000. Be sure to register your interest if you intend on getting one!

 

 

Update Dec 9, 2010:

 

The CFFA project is still alive and well. It has been quite awhile since I have updated my web site. Sorry to keep everyone in the dark. There has been a lot of interest, and the delays have not been for lack of interest in the project, but more for personal reasons. I am loath to make a firm estimate about when this will be done, so I won't. I do know that we are at least another 3 months away.

Here is a brief summary of the progress on the CFFA3000 and an update on the price:

 

1) The CFFA3000 will cost US$149.95.

This is more than I wanted, but I didn't have a choice. Compared to the previous CFFA, the CFFA3000 has more features, over twice as many parts, and a CPLD 9 times larger. Not to mention the costs for PCBS and assembly rising.

 

2) The CFFA3000 can now read/write and boot 140K DSK, NIB and 2MG files. It handles both ProDOS order (PO) and DOS order (DO) images, and of course very large SmartPort images (up to 32MB for ProDOS, and even larger under GS/OS).

 

3) Although the CFFA3000 only uses one slot, it will require two empty slots to enable both SmartPort (Hard Drive) and floppy emulation. A typical setup might be the CFFA3000 in slot 7, and slot 6 left empty for the CFFA3000 disk emulation to map into. You can configure the CFFA3000 to function as a standard mass storage interface, or as a Floppy controller or both. When both are selected, the slot with CFFA3000 plugged in is the hard drive, and another available slot is the floppy controller.

 

4) Five prototype #2 boards were made and the third prototype PCB is nearly ready to be produced. I am hoping that this prototype will be the final production version.

 

5) The CPLD bootloader is finished so customers may download logic updates to fix future problems found in the CPLD logic.

 

6) Work has started on the microcontroller's bootloader, and should be finished soon. The bootloader's job is to apply updates to the firmware running on the AVR microcontroller.

 

7) Good progress has been made on the boot menus and file selection user interface. There are several ways to enter the CFFA3000 menu, including pressing 'M' at boot time, or (on the Apple IIgs) using the Classic Desk Accessory menu by pressing Apple-Control-Esc.

 

8 ) A number of images have booted and run, including ProDOS 2.0.3, DOS 3.3, UCSD Pascal, CP/M 2.23, Contiki, and Merlin-8 2.47, and RobotWar. These tests are not very exhaustive yet, but so far have not shown any problems (that we couldn't fix).

 

9) The AVR microcontroller part we are using for the CFFA3000 is on allocation (in short supply) so I have already ordered and received 200 units just in case they are hard to get later.

 

LINK

[Koopa64]

Lucky me that I have hundreds of disks at my disposal. Kinda stinks how I don't understand how ADTPro works though...

 

First new game I'm adding to my small arsenal is The Oddessey: The Compleat Apventure!

[magnusfalkirk]

Those CFFA3000 cards are definitely cool... but I've limited my collection to an Apple //c. Obviously, it doesn't have internal card slots. I've searched, but found nothing similar to a drive emulator or multicard for it. Does anyone know of something that I've missed?

 

I realize I'm reviving an old thread but I'm not sure if you've seen this info posted elsewhere on this site: http://www.spvhd.org/ This is a device designed to plug into the Smartport on the back of the //c or IIGS. Here's something else that is interesting: http://www.applelogic.org/CarteBlancheAtto.html a replacement for the CPU in an Apple ][/][+/IIe or IIc. It also lets you use micro SD cards for hard disk emulation!

 

magnus

[+remowilliams]

Also a good time to mention a status update for the CFFA3000.

 

 

CompactFlash Interface for Apple II (CFFA)

 

Pre-orders for the CFFA3000 Run #1 will be opening around the end July 2011.

 

-Rich

 

So get ready if you're interested folks!

[jamesk]

Somehow, from somewhere I'm going to have to scrape up enough money for the CFFA3000.

[Mark Wolfe]

There's also a device called the MicroDrive that uses a CF card, the website seems to be down at the moment. not sure if that only works with a IIGS though. I also read that the Catweasel IV can handle apple floppys. the catweasel is a PCI card that you put in your normal PC and you can attache a bunch of different classic floppy drives to it. It is good for copying data back and forth between pc and your classic computer's floppy disk.

 

here is a link that is working that might lead to something usable for other floppy emu projects:

 

http://lotharek.pl/category.php?kid=7

 

 

BTW: if you are looking to play classic games using the CFFA3000, don't count on too many of the game disk images working on this thing. most won't run.

Edited July 23, 2011 by Mark Wolfe

[Mark Wolfe]

ADTpro + Asimov + Serial Cable (or in my case 2 Audio Cables) + 2 blank floppies = every Apple // game ever. It is pure MAGIC.

 

 

 

hey cebis, this is totally new to me, can you outline the parts , procedures & links to teach me how to do this? does it work with a IIGS or just the II?

[desiv]

Basically, here's audio bootstrapping:

and serial:

 

(IIGS I believe has built in serial, so you shouldn't need the audio, but audio bootstrapping is just so kual!!)

 

1 disk to hold your ADTPro boot disk that you write first. And 1 disk for whichever game you DL from Asimov.

 

There's also something called the AppleGameServer that is similar, but you don't write games to floppy, you load them into memory and play them.

(Single file games only, but there's a lot)

 

desiv

[Cebus Capucinis]

Sure! It's pretty simple. There's lots of different solutions to go about using ADTPro to transfer disk images from the Asimov archives. If you're lucky enough to have a Networking card in your Apple, you're on the road to the easy way to do it. If not, a Serial card will get you in a great place as well. If you have a //c, the serial port is the easiest way to do it, but you'll likely need to buy a special adapter for serial to USB (I can't remember where I bought mine, something like retrofloppy or the like, it's a collector that makes them in his spare time) and the program. If you're okay with slower loading speeds, you can always use the audio cable method, though with a //c you can't do it, since there's no input/output for audio, just output IIRC.

 

The link to ADT Pro is right here: http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/. This website is great, very informative, shows you how to do it just about any way you'd like to. If you're using a //gs, though, you'll definitely want to use the null modem cable to hook up to your PC. Retrofloppy should have those and a USB adapter so you can easily transfer files!

 

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/connectionsserial.html#MiniDIN8

 

After you have the right supplies, you can download the ADTPro software for free directly from the site, and then 'bootstrap' an ADTPro disk to the Apple. Here's the instructions for that:

 

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/bootstrap.html

 

After you've made the disk, you simply open the program, click the connection you want to use, it will automatically link, then run the ADTPro software on the Apple. You have several menu choices, but I believe it is R for receive, then you type the filename you want (the ADTPro software will let you link to the folder the Apple will use for the 'base folder'), and sit back and wait while your disk gets copied track-for-track at varying speeds depending on your choice. Very nifty little program!

 

Here is the Asimov Apple // archive: ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/ It contains pretty much any disk you could ever ask to use. I don't know if it's 100% complete for every single little bit of software the Apple has, but it's very near 100%.