+remowilliams Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Yay! My CFFA3000 just arrived! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 (envy) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted October 27, 2011 Author Share Posted October 27, 2011 Yay! My CFFA3000 just arrived! You know what they say..... "Pics, or it didn't happen!" Seriously, pics, man!!!! Gotta see this, and also hear your mini-review in 1/2 paragraph!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Yes.. But don't limit yourself to a half a paragraph!! It seems today, everyone is expecting tiny bites because we all have no attention spans.. Well, that's not true!! I love in depth and probing reviews that... er.. Is that a cat in a cape on youtube?? Ohh kual.. I'm sorry, what were we talking about?? Oh yeah.. PIX!! desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnusfalkirk Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 (edited) Yay! My CFFA3000 just arrived! Congrats! I'm a ways down the list so I figure I'll get mine about the middle of Nov. Can't wait! This, along with the SoundMeister card I recently bought through eBay, will make my GS that much better. Now all I need, if I can ever find one at a reasonable price, is an accelerator for the GS and I'll be set. Edited October 27, 2011 by magnusfalkirk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 You know what they say..... "Pics, or it didn't happen!" Okay, if you insist. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skosh Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Nice!! Would love to hear your impressions as I wait for mine to arrive. Congrats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I haven't had much time to spend playing with it, but so far my review would be - it's brilliant! I grabbed my fully restored previous school disaster IIe, which only has an EX80 and a Disk II card for the test. I dropped some .dsk, .do, and .nib files onto and old 32MB flash card, and then pulled the Disk II and installed the CFFA into its slot. Booted the IIe, and hit M to bring up the CFFA config menu, configured the virtual drives for the first time, rebooted and went back to the menu to select a disk image then rebooted again. Within about 2 seconds Aztec had loaded! Then proceeded to test some other images and all worked flawlessly. The whole setup was literally only minutes, this thing is simply amazing and exactly the type of device I have been wanting for a very, very long time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 That's awesome. I wonder if there are any CF extension cables available. It would be nice if we could mount a CF externally so we wouldn't have to open the computer to access the CF card. That's a small quibble though. I don't expect to need to do much card swapping once I dump a TOSEC on the thing. Also, this thing emulates hard disks right? How's that work, do you have to create a disk image to mount or do you just get the whole CF filesystem presented as a hard disk? I think mine will be in the next batch he sends out, so I'll find out soon enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yell0w_lantern Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I'm very interested to hear more about how this performs. I emilaed the guy my interest in another run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 That's awesome. I wonder if there are any CF extension cables available. It would be nice if we could mount a CF externally so we wouldn't have to open the computer to access the CF card. That's a small quibble though. I don't expect to need to do much card swapping once I dump a TOSEC on the thing. I wouldn't worry about swapping CF cards. It has USB so you could mount a USB connector externally and use a USB drive. Besides, even the tiny CF card that came with my CFFA is like a huge hard drive on my IIgs. You can put a LOT on one card! Also, this thing emulates hard disks right? How's that work, do you have to create a disk image to mount or do you just get the whole CF filesystem presented as a hard disk? I had to use a tool included with my CFFA card to set up partitions and format for ProDOS or IIgs OS. It's pretty easy. I think mine will be in the next batch he sends out, so I'll find out soon enough. You'll love it. I just wish mine had the floppy emulation. Guess I'll have to buy a new one and move the other to a different machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 (edited) BTW, booting my regular speed IIgs from a CFFA hard disk is pretty fast, and that's without DMA. Too bad we didn't have this type of technology back in the day. It would have made 8 bits a hell of a lot more useful! Edited October 28, 2011 by JamesD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 You could always run a USB extension out of the case from the CFFA USB port if you wanted an external mount device Yes, it does hard disk as well. Here's a snippet from the manual. There are many ways the CFFA3000 can be useful. Some interesting scenarios: Acting as a hard drive: ProDOS has the ability to use one or more hard drives up to 32 megabytes in size. Configuring the CFFA3000 with a hard drive image in the SmartPort will allow you to format it and copy files to it just like a real hard drive. Copying the files named PRODOS and BASIC.SYSTEM from any ProDOS system disk will make the CFFA3000 bootable in that slot. Acting as a disk II drive: Floppy disk images that you create yourself or find on the Internet can be used on the CFFA3000, just the same way you might use them on an emulator—except you‘ll be running them on a real Apple II. Configure the CFFA3000 to host a virtual Disk II adapter in whatever slot is convenient (slot 6 is of course typical for a Disk II). The virtual Disk II adapter slot you choose can either be the same slot as the CFFA3000 is inserted into, which would disable the SmartPort capability - or it can be any other unoccupied slot in your Apple so you retain the SmartPort capability. Making backup copies of disks: You can use your normal Disk II card in slot 6, and configure the CFFA3000 to act as a second Disk II controller in slot 7. You can then use any Disk II copying software to copy from slot 6 to slot 7. The resulting disk image files on the CFFA3000 will be backups of the physical disks. Many Apple II-based tools (i.e. COPYA, Copy II+, etc.) that can successfully copy a disk in the real world will be able to copy to a disk image hosted on the CFFA3000. The CFFA also has the ability to ―capture‖ an image of any ProDOS or SmartPort drive (including physical Disk II drives) existing in the system. Speeding up disk access: Disk operations can be sped up in two ways: by default, an RWTS ―patch‖ is active (signified by a quick double-beep during startup) that speeds up Disk II operations significantly under the DOS operating system. Another speedup can be realized by assigning what would normally be used as a Disk II image as a SmartPort device, also realizing a significant speedup – this is especially useful for ProDOS disk images. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 I wouldn't worry about swapping CF cards. It has USB so you could mount a USB connector externally and use a USB drive. Besides, even the tiny CF card that came with my CFFA is like a huge hard drive on my IIgs. You can put a LOT on one card! I was more thinking of when I want to transfer stuff from the internet to the card. The external USB idea might work if I can copy from the USB to the CF card on the apple II. I had to use a tool included with my CFFA card to set up partitions and format for ProDOS or IIgs OS. It's pretty easy. Does that utility run on the Apple II? Mine did indeed ship in the last batch. I've been waiting on it to start some disk swap intensive RPGs, should be a fun winter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 Thanks for the picture! Man, I am just not in a place where I can drop some cash... So it's ADT and floppies for me right now, but... I so totally want one of these things! (starts saving pennies) Apple ][ machines are a lot of fun this way. Almost no limit to what can be stuffed into a card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 I had to use a tool included with my CFFA card to set up partitions and format for ProDOS or IIgs OS. It's pretty easy. Does that utility run on the Apple II? Yes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesk Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 I've got mine too. I'm just waiting to get a USB flash drive on Monday. The cheap one I had didn't seem compatible. I found a USB extension cable and I've run it out the back of my IIgs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Am I missing something, or are directories on the CF card unsupported? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 ProDOS filesystem supports directories natively, wtf? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 No, I mean on the CF card. It's formatted FAT32. I can see and use DSK images on the root of the card, but directories don't even show up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Am I missing something, or are directories on the CF card unsupported? Yes I noticed this as soon as I got a bit more time to spend with it. I'm really hoping directory support gets added. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Well at least I'm not doing anything wrong. I was worried at first when I copied my 2MG and DSK directories to the CF card and didn't see anything. Then I copied the contents of DSK to the root of the card and it wasn't even able to display all the As. I'm definitely going to need nested subdirectory support on this thing. I'd post a feature request on their forums, but registration is manual and Rich is travelling this week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesk Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 Are directories on USB working for you? I couldn't see them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 No, I haven't tried USB yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telengard Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Just ordered one of these. Any word on subdirectory support? ~telengard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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