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CFFA3000 PREORDERS OPEN AS OF 3PM TODAY!


eightbit

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Ordered mine, regular edition plus remote. I don't think I really need the remote but figured if I don't get it now, I may not have the chance later if I change my mind.

 

 

I already have a remote I don't use currently (as my CFFA3000 is in the IIGS and it is pointless as you can get to the menu to change Apple II disks), but it will be useful with the CFFA3000 I just ordered for use with my IIe.

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I can't justify an extra $200 for a red board myself. It is cool and all, but functionally the same as the green board. I guess for a collector of homebrew limited edition stuff it would be nice. I suspect people will be selling these soon at some crazy premium. I purchased the standard model for the functionality of the thing. :) As an owner of one already I have to say that it is probably my favorite homebrew device for old computers. Mine sits in a IIGS and I have been using it for over a year. I got lucky and someone here on AA sold it to me at retail cost. I have been waiting for a second one to finalize my IIe. I have a new PSU from reactive coming for it, upgraded the video to VGA...and now the CFFA3000 in the IIe will make it complete for me. Really glad I was able to get in on this final run.

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I can't justify an extra $200 for a red board myself. It is cool and all, but functionally the same as the green board. I guess for a collector of homebrew limited edition stuff it would be nice. I suspect people will be selling these soon at some crazy premium. I purchased the standard model for the functionality of the thing. :) As an owner of one already I have to say that it is probably my favorite homebrew device for old computers. Mine sits in a IIGS and I have been using it for over a year. I got lucky and someone here on AA sold it to me at retail cost. I have been waiting for a second one to finalize my IIe. I have a new PSU from reactive coming for it, upgraded the video to VGA...and now the CFFA3000 in the IIe will make it complete for me. Really glad I was able to get in on this final run.

 

People may also be paying for the early shipment of them too. Rich says that those will go out in a separate queue from the regular editions.

 

Oh, and Eightbit, I planned to PM you this week about BoP that we were talking about. :)

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Sure thing on the BoP...let me know :)

 

As for the shipping time, who cares. I waiting long enough on the mailing list that a few more weeks aren't going to kill me. I have lots of projects to keep me busy :) But, I guess paying the $375 for a limited edition card with rush shipping is a whole lot better than the $500 I have seen people on ebay pay for just a plain card. If I had the expendable funds I would have went for a red board myself (and I was REALLY debating it) but, ehh...glad I didn't do that. I don't care what color the board is at the end of the day. I just want to use it :)

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Noob question. What makes this better than the Reacitive MicroDrive/Turbo?

 

MicroDrive emulates a hard drive, which is not particularly useful for most people on an Apple II. CFFA3000 emulates a floppy drive *or* hard drive. But the Apple II was a floppy-based machine. Even a IIGS really requires a floppy drive setup. You could go forever just with a floppy emulator that didn't have any hard drive support, but the reverse would not be true for most people and that's what the MicroDrive is.

 

If you have a MicroDrive, you really need to also have actual floppy drives. The whole reason for a device like the CFFA3000 is that you no longer need any physical drives at all.

 

The Floppy Emu is similar but it's external. Still a great device (I have one). But the MicroDrive is something different. I personally don't really know why you'd buy a MicroDrive at this point. I'm sure it served a purpose at the time it was first developed, but I think it's just too limited compared to what other devices can do now.

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Yeah, if all you had available to you was a MicroDrive I guess you would have to make due. It is not something that makes sense to me for my situation however as I want to mount and run all of the floppy disk images available online. The CFFA3000 makes that possible and super easy. I actually got rid of my IIGS drives initially when I got the CFFA3000 and I was fine with that. But, I ended up getting a 3 1/2 inch drive again for those "just in case scenarios".....although I have to admit there haven't been any of those to date. If you had just a IIGS and a CFFA3000 you can experience most of what the IIGS has to offer. There are some bugs (like Lemmings not running correctly) which you might want to keep a real drive around for such instances.

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For anyone on the fence, don't be. There's a reason why these sell out. I used to use it in my Apple IIGS (ROM 01), but since I pared down to just an Apple IIe Platinum, I use it in that. Naturally, the remote is all but a requirement if you don't have a IIGS.

 

The only thing that disappoints me about it is a limitation of the Apple II itself, and it's that I can't have this and a physical disk card plugged in at the same time if I want full CFFA 3000 functionality (virtual disk and hard drive). That's not as big of a deal as it used to be, of course, since I got rid of all of my boxed software.

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For anyone on the fence, don't be. There's a reason why these sell out. I used to use it in my Apple IIGS (ROM 01), but since I pared down to just an Apple IIe Platinum, I use it in that. Naturally, the remote is all but a requirement if you don't have a IIGS.

 

The only thing that disappoints me about it is a limitation of the Apple II itself, and it's that I can't have this and a physical disk card plugged in at the same time if I want full CFFA 3000 functionality (virtual disk and hard drive). That's not as big of a deal as it used to be, of course, since I got rid of all of my boxed software.

I have my CFFA3000 in Slot #7 in my ROM 01 ][gs, and it emulates a Hard Drive there, as well as Shadowing the 5.25" and 3.5" Disks into Slots #6 and #5...

 

If I deactivated the 5.25" Drives Shadowed into Slot #6, I could use the ][gs' internal Card to connect to a pair of 5.25" Drives....

 

 

If your just copying Disks, you can temporally install a Disk ][ Card into Slot #4 or #2 or #1...

 

MarkO

Edited by MarkO
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I have my CFFA3000 in Slot #7 in my ROM 01 ][gs, and it emulates a Hard Drive there, as well as Shadowing the 5.25" and 3.5" Disks into Slots #6 and #5...

 

If I deactivated the 5.25" Drives Shadowed into Slot #6, I could use the ][gs' internal Card to connect to a pair of 5.25" Drives....

 

 

If your just copying Disks, you can temporally install a Disk ][ Card into Slot #4 or #2 or #1...

 

MarkO

 

I looked into this and don't think the issue is unique to me. There appears to be a conflict with the disk card in slot 6 where if it's plugged in and you try to run a virtual disk, it will spin up physical drive A. The only fix appears to be unplugging the disk card. If I want to run a physical disk, I'd need to plug the controller card back in. Or is that not correct?

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Are you referring to using it with a IIGS or a IIe? I have yet to use it in a IIe, but I know in the IIGS I can use it alongside both my 3.5 and 5 1/4 drives...as I do this often. I can boot from virtual HDD or virtual floppy, or real floppies on either actual drive.

 

Yes, the CFFA 3000's usage is more flexible on an Apple IIGS. I no longer have one. I'm using it on an Apple II Platinum, which from all I've read (and experienced), has the restriction. No big deal, really, as I got rid of all my physical software, although it still would have been nice to keep the disk controller card in the slot.

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You can't have the disk controller in another slot like 5 or 4? I have a IIE platinum myself and was planning on using my drives along with this. Not a deal breaker if I cannot, but I'll have to test this.

 

I believe my setup is like this at present:

 

1 - Super Serial
2 -
3 - Extended 80 column
4 - Mockingboard v2.1 with two speech chips
5 -
6 - Disk II card (removed for full CFFA3000 functionality)
7 - CFFA3000 v1.3
I suppose I could do the Disk II card in slot 5 since I removed the second Mockingboard, although I seem to recall not all software liking the Disk II in anything but slot 6. I vaguely recall it doing the same thing in a different slot, but I could be mis-remembering. I'll give it a try again and see what happens.
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I believe that it will work as expected if in slot 5 on your setup. I used to think the controller needed to be in slot 6, but that is not the case. If you have the card in 5 the macHine will start looking in 7 backward for a boot device. If you have nothing mounted on the cffa3000 it will go to the controller card in slot 5 and boot that floppy.

 

I did hear that select software will only work from slot 6 but I have not come across any yet. I DO know that the apple online disk server will only write to slot 6. Found that out when it kept error in when my card wa's in 5.

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