Keatah Posted August 29, 2016 Share Posted August 29, 2016 With new CFFA3000 delayed till end of 2017.. I wonder if this will increase the popularity of FloppyEMU from BMOW will become the new standard? In the meantime I bet CFFA3000 will go for 300 or more on ebay now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuf Posted August 29, 2016 Share Posted August 29, 2016 They're different approaches but do provide similar functionality in some respects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 29, 2016 Share Posted August 29, 2016 (edited) Well, I went with the Floppy EMU because of the unavailability of the CFFA3000... I really like it, no reason not to recommend it for what it is. Although - and I'm not sure if the CFFA would solve this dilemma or not - I would love it if I could use the Floppy EMU *and* all four of my floppy drives simultaneously, booting from the Floppy EMU as a hard drive. The Apple II's rules for stuff connected to the smart port prevent that. I'm on the lookout for another smartport-enabled controller card, but they are apparently expensive. (Meaning I might just say "screw it".) Edited August 29, 2016 by spacecadet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david__schmidt Posted August 30, 2016 Share Posted August 30, 2016 Although - and I'm not sure if the CFFA would solve this dilemma or not - I would love it if I could use the Floppy EMU *and* all four of my floppy drives simultaneously, booting from the Floppy EMU as a hard drive. Yes, no reason why the CFFA3000 would prevent that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 Yes, no reason why the CFFA3000 would prevent that. I'm thinking I might pick one up once they're out there again then, and sell my Floppy EMU. I feel like that's the Floppy EMU's achilles heel, is that by nature of what it is, it has to follow the II's daisy chaining rules, making it impossible to use everything together. Still a really useful device, and I'll bet a lot of people won't care about that. It's still possible to load every Apple II 5.25" game ever made (which is like 99% of all of them) on a small micro SD card and just boot it as if it was any other 5.25" drive, which is awesome. The only hassle is if you want to boot into GS/OS on a IIGS and still have access to both 3.5" and 5.25" physical drives. That's probably kind of a special use case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david__schmidt Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 (edited) I'm thinking I might pick one up once they're out there again then, and sell my Floppy EMU. Definitely pick a CFFA3000 up when you can, but don't sell the Floppy EMU - you can never have too many gadgets. The reason why the CFFA3000 is so flexible is that it's sitting directly on the bus - and it can insert its phantom Disk II-ness anywhere else in the bus you want it to. Then, any other disk images you want are on the SmartPort, including hard drive or any size floppy images, 5-1/4" included. It can hook itself into DOS 3.3 and speed up Disk II access even more. I try to have one of everything (I "need" to test them for ADTPro compatibility, I tell myself) but the CFFA3000 is really the Swiss Army knife of disk surrogates. Edited August 31, 2016 by david__schmidt 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 I am So Impressed with the Flexibility of the CFFA3000, I bought Two of them.... The price of the Floppy EMU means that you should buy a few of them too... MarkO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 CFFA3000 is a simply amazing device and well worth the wait. Never heard of the BMOW Floppy Emu and was just checking it out, seems pretty neat and a very good solution for a IIc. Anyone know if the Emu does multiple emulated drives simultaneously? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20ohm20 Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 I finally bought a CFFA3000 for my enhanced //e during the last run and I have no idea how I went so long without it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 Never heard of the BMOW Floppy Emu and was just checking it out, seems pretty neat and a very good solution for a IIc. Anyone know if the Emu does multiple emulated drives simultaneously? That's a complicated question with a relatively simple answer, but I'm finding it hard to clearly explain it because of the way the Apple II treats disk drives. For floppies: it emulates one drive at a time, and works like any other physical drive (including following daisy chain rules) but it always needs to be last in the daisy chain because it doesn't have an output port. For hard drives: it can emulate up to four volumes at a time - the first one can be a max of 32MB if you want to boot off of it because it has to be ProDOS, but the other three can be a max of 2GB because they can be HSF. The IIc didn't originally have a smartport or even 3.5" drive support, so depending on your model of IIc, it may only work to emulate a 5.25" drive. It also supposedly won't boot on a IIc even as a 5.25" drive, because of the IIc's own internal drive that it always sees as device #1. There is probably some way around that (maybe disconnecting the internal drive), but I'm not sure. It's not a great solution for a IIc, I don't think, but then I don't know what is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 Yes I was thinking in terms of it replacing the internal IIc drive, and floppy emulation only. So it only emulates one floppy drive? That's less than ideal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 31, 2016 Author Share Posted August 31, 2016 (edited) Would the //c's internal connector support 2 drives? Probably not without bringing in a select signal with a jumper wire. Edited August 31, 2016 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 Yes I was thinking in terms of it replacing the internal IIc drive, and floppy emulation only. So it only emulates one floppy drive? That's less than ideal. Yes, one floppy drive at a time. You would need two of them if you wanted to emulate two floppies simultaneously, although I don't think the IIc has two connectors on the motherboard. It's probably not possible on the IIc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 Thanks guys, IIc is back in 'no solution' land Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tbullet Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 I missed run #3 by 48 hours so when they became available again, I preordered 2. Great card. super fast and easy to work with. I have one in my IIGS and will put one in my IIe. If you guys get a chance to grab one, jump on it. I only wish that the Transwarp GS wasn't limited and the price was out of this world. Just as expensive as the original ones. I hope they bring those back and cheaper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 http://www.ebay.com/itm/162183918541 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted September 4, 2016 Share Posted September 4, 2016 (edited) I also recommend the CFFA 3000. It's amazing. One of the things I do on my Apple //e is write. What I did was get a little USB extension cord so the socket is right there near the keyboard. Boot a flash drive, write my stuff, save. Plug into PC, get the text and do whatever with it. This should not be as easy as it is. Crazy! When they come around again, I'm buying one for my newly acquired GS. Being able to get cool cards made today is one thing I really appreciate about the Apple 2 scene. People are making hardware, as originally intended. So far, I've made some progress on a card of my own. Need to get a prototyping computer though. Or maybe just a motherboard. Just not sure I won't torch my working machines, and I want to play some. Someone mentioned $300 on ebay. Honestly, the CFFA is worth it at that price if you are using your Apple 2 series machine at all. This product is a home run, perfectly executed. It's seamless and quite useful. Edited September 4, 2016 by potatohead 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted September 4, 2016 Author Share Posted September 4, 2016 What's nice about most Apple II upgrades is that they plug right in. No soldering, no jumpering, no playing around with tools. Pop the top and plugger'in! Advanced mods *might* come with a cable bracket or somesuch bit of hardware requiring a screwdriver to screw it in place. But, hey! And furthermore the interoperability and magic in the software that comes with addons is something to make note of. Compatibility is really good. All tied together by the Apple's firmware. Having said all that, it's neat being able to segue from one thing to another with these solid state disks and even in emulation. It can be done so quickly you could imagine you've got multiple tasks running. One moment I'm playing Repton, the next I'm copying DOS tracks in Copy II+. Then back to Phantoms Five. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted September 6, 2016 Share Posted September 6, 2016 I also recommend the CFFA 3000. It's amazing. << SNIP>> Someone mentioned $300 on ebay. Honestly, the CFFA is worth it at that price if you are using your Apple 2 series machine at all. This product is a home run, perfectly executed. It's seamless and quite useful. The CFFA3000 is definitely a nice piece of Hardware... But if you can wait until a RUN of them, the cost is much more reasonable.. In the mean time, the Floppy EMU is available and very reasonable in price... Being the "thrifty person" I am, I would get the Floppy EMU now, and the CFFA3000 later... MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted September 6, 2016 Share Posted September 6, 2016 Would the //c's internal connector support 2 drives? Probably not without bringing in a select signal with a jumper wire. That shouldn't be difficult as the connector for the external drive is nearby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoestring Posted October 5, 2016 Share Posted October 5, 2016 I saw the last unit sell for $230 on eBay in completed listings, not a bad deal considering the long wait required for the next run. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polbit Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I know it's nowhere near as flexible, but I got the MicroDrive/Turbo for my IIgs, and it works great. You can have as many images as you want at the same time, and IIgs boots from it perfectly. Did sign up for the next CFA 3000 run though... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Will the SD DISK][ Emulator be a serious threat to the CFFA 3000, or does the new device rather play in the same league as the other substitutes? I didn't find any thread in the Apple forum mentioning it yet, only StarshipUK who posted about it in the general flashcart thread. http://quick09.tistory.com/1244 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c0op3r Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Paid 300 for one of my CFFA's and 349 for the other - worth every penny. An amazing card that I wish was made more often, I would suggest just raising the price to be able to make extras to 'stock' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted December 20, 2016 Author Share Posted December 20, 2016 Nope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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