New CFFA3000's being made again.

[Keatah]

You can get freshly 2021-made CFFA3000s from ebay, for ebay prices. Sucks that they specifically choose to double the price of what R&D was originally charging. But at least it might control the $500 scalping going on.

 

Spoiler

BRAND NEW NEWLY PRODUCED CFFA 3000 

 

Available here and ONLY here is the "CFFA 3000" for the Apple II, II+, IIe, and IIgs.  These were originally made by R&D Automation as a cutting edge mass storage card that allows for both USB and CF card storage in a slot on your Apple II computer.   Simply put, this card for its time was and is still considered one of the best mass storage boards produced.  Originally available with a remote, these however DO NOT come with a remote.   This is something that is still being produced and will be available for purchase in the near future.   This however does not change the function of this card and it still controllable via the menu system.

 

Before now, these boards were always made in batches and made available in limited runs.  Fast forward to 2021, ReActiveMicro.com has entered into agreement with R&D Automation to produce these boards and make them available once again.  

 

These boards are not that easy to produce and have taken some time to get built due to shortages of parts (this global chip shortage has not made things any better).    

 

What is listed here is the first batch of boards that have been newly produced here in 2021.  Although there will be some modernization needed to keep producing these boards in the future, this is step one to get them back on the market.  This eBay listing is here to help support their efforts and see where everything goes as far as future runs.  The goal will be to have these constantly available, but, we would like to see how this first goes here.  

 

But who's eBay account is this?

Where and how does UltimateApple2 fit into this equation?

 

As you can see from the seller name here, We are "UltimateApple2" and as most of your are aware, we are completely separate companies from both ReActiveMicro and R&D Automation.  We have been in existence since 2007 and have partnered in the past with ReActiveMicro for our co-branded Ultimate-Micro brand of products.  Although we no longer are developing partners on Ultimate-Micro projects, ReActiveMicro still sells products of UltimateApple2's and are the exclusive resale outlet for certain current products.  With the CFFA 3000 boards that ReActiveMicro will produce, we have been authorized to be the first place to get the newly CFFA3000 boards as we, UltimateApple2, have become the exclusive official eBay reseller of them.

 

The Future of UltimateApple2.com:

We did take down temporarily the UltimateApple2.com website at the end of 2019, but do plan on having it back up and running since there are products that are finished and ready to be released as well.  We hope to see you there soon for all support related matters. 

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by Keatah

[Baldrick]

Ya, but $399 plus shipping for a card worth $150 is already scalping.

[Keatah]

True enough. Won't argue there.

 

ReActiveMicro is now selling them (on backorder) for $225. A somewhat more reasonable price considering how prices everywhere are artificially inflated on the covid excuse.

 

When looking at BMOW's FloppyEmu I can't help but wonder if the FE is the better choice. It supports .WOZ read/write. While .WOZ is first being discussed for CFFA3000. I sometimes, now, recently, think CFFA3000's time has come and gone - if there are choices available.

 

And FloppyEmu's got that cute little noise flapper!

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Keatah

[Baldrick]

On 6/19/2021 at 3:58 PM, Keatah said:

When looking at BMOW's FloppyEmu I can't help but wonder if the FE is the better choice. It supports .WOZ read/write. While .WOZ is first being discussed for CFFA3000. I sometimes, now, recently, think CFFA3000's time has come and gone - if there are choices available.

 

And FloppyEmu's got that cute little noise flapper!

 

Honestly I don't have any use for .woz files in day-to-day operation. Sure .woz has some utility for manipulation of copy protected files, but in those copy protected disk images are few and far between.  I'd say that 99% of the disk images out there are already either cracked or non-copy protected.

Plus the Floppy Emu still can't give you a hard disk image or a 32 Mb ProDOS volume on a IIe or II+.

So the enter the CFFA with its ability to provide both 5.25/3.5 disk images AND 32 Mb ProDOS volumes in one device.

Or the MictoDrive/Turbo (ProDOS hard disk images only) which is now II+ compatible as I understand it.

[Keatah]

Ya' gotta laugh at the flunkies that bought CFFA3000s on ebay at $600+ this past year or two. The asking price of $225 isn't that bad considering parts availability post-pandemic when industries are dragging getting up to speed. And these parts are indeed becoming harder to get by default, because old!

 

 

Hi Apple II Fans,

 

Sorry for the spam... but I suspect many of you may be interested to know that I have recently licensed ReActiveMicro.com to build the CFFA3000 for Apple II design. There is still a lot of demand for it, and I never found the time to build it any longer. When Henry of RM expressed interest, I decided to go ahead and license the design to him exclusively.

 

Although it is getting quite tricky to find some of the parts in this old design (eg. dual port SRAM), I understand that Henry has been able to build a batch of 250 units. He is still waiting for the new batch to arrive. Building of a prototype batch has been successful and I tested several of those boards myself.

 

If interested you can pre-order a unit here:
https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/cffa-v1-0-rev-c-rm-for-ii-ii-iie-and-iigs/

 

Thanks,
-Rich Dreher

 

[desiv]

Nice...  Glad it is available again for a more reasonable price than on e-bay.

That said, as I am more.. er.. um...  frugal??  (Yeah, I know.. cheap... )...

 

I had put my name on the list for a Booti and finally got the call.

Just got it yesterday...

I haven't gone thru the manual to learn all of what it can do, but for the basics, it is working...

(I did have to format my USB stick for FAT.  FAT32 didn't work.  I have heard it ca be picky with USB sticks...)

 

The //e boots with the little delay, during which I can hit the number keys from 1-8 to choose to boot off of the file I have associated with that slot.

Or if I let it timeout (currently I think the default is 8 seconds?  You can change that), it boots to the image in slot 1, in which I placed Total Replay.

 

So, I've used it to load up Total Replay and Nox Archaist from their hard drive images.

And I have used it to play Attack of the Petscii Robots from it's disk image. 

 

Doesn't seem fancy, but for what I use my //e for, I think it's great.

 

If I were a more power user, I'd probably go for the CFFA or if I was into loading lots of different games from images, I'd look at the FloppyEmu.

 

Nice to see there are so many great options for the ][ line!

[Great Hierophant]

The CFFA3000 is a good choice, but it is something of a jack-of-all-trades solution.  The Micro Drive Turbo is faster when it comes to data transfer and FloppyEmu supports .woz files.  I wish all copy protected Apple II software was available in the .woz format, and while that may never be the case, at least most of the important games are.  And if not, then at least there should be a clean crack available for most of the rest.  

[hwrd]

Another nice option is the SD DISK][ Plus. I have one in my IIe.

I have a BOOTI in my IIGS, it's excellent also.

[gferluga]

What’s about the BMOW Floppy Emu from BMOW?