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CFFA3000 - fantastic!

smp

smp

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
1,731
Location
Bedford, NH, USA
Hello all,

I received a CFFA3000 from Rich Dreher last week, and now that I've had some time to play around with it, all I can say is WOW!

This is a fantastic addition to my Apple IIGS system. I have hear others praise it, and all the praise that is out there is perfectly well deserved.

I now essentially have a hard disk in my system, as well as file storage for every .DSK and .2MG disk image that I have downloaded from the Internet. The card comes with built-in software to look at the memory stick that I have all my disk images on, and it is easy to pop into the menu on startup and make certain that all the disk images that I want get loaded for the session. It took some time for me to play around with it, and I found that one of my old, small memory sticks had some problems, but once I got the hang of things (and a new memory stick, just to be certain), it all is pretty simple.

This is easily the best accessory that anyone could purchase for their Apple II system. It is absolutely fantastic!

smp
 
So far as my ideal pimp for my Rom 03, a CFFA 3000 and a 4mb card would about do it. Those a Korean mockingbird clone might be cake. Now if I can just justify $250 to put those parts onto a machine that impressed me despite myself, but still is borne out of a fruit :)
 
dabone said:
... next up a 4meg card.
Click to expand...

Hello,

You know, I have been tempted to send Briel the $89 plus shipping for one of those 4 meg RAM cards, too.

So far, I have not grown my GS/OS any larger than 1.1 meg, so since I have a 1 meg Apple memory card installed, things seem to be fine.

Can anyone offer up some pointers that will justify why one needs to invest in additional memory? What are you all doing that you might need a 4 meg RAM card over a 1 meg RAM card (except for the cool factor, of course)?

Thanks,
smp
 
It's required for Wolf3d. But you also want an accelerator for that. I don't have one so I didn't spend much time with it. You can also use the 4 megs of RAM as a RAM disk, but that's less useful if you already have the CFFA. Unless you're multitasking GS/OS apps it's probably not terribly useful.
 
So, I don't really need the 4meg card to play around in gs/os?
Good, then I can save that money and put it to the new amiga 500 accelerator/ide controller coming out.

When my CFFA gets here I will have solid state storage for all my main retro computers.

Commodore/iec = uiec
Commodore PET = petdisk
Coco = Drivepak (Homemade clone using a modem 300 pak)
Atari = Sio2sd
Apple = CFFA3000
Tandy 1000 = XT-IDE with CF Adapter.
Amiga = I currently use a 1200, and it's got IDE built in with a CF card attached.

Floppies are vintage, but a pain in the ass to use.;)


Later,
dabone
 
For the most part. I've installed GS/OS and run a few apps with 1 meg and it works.
I didn't try anything super intensive, but AppleWorks runs.

I try to do the same for all my vintage computers. My setup is similar, but I sprung
for the 1541U-II. Never use a real disk drive on my C64 anymore. I still need a
CoCo drivepak, and I hadn't heard about the IDE interface for Amiga 500, got a link?

I try to get flash carts for my consoles too. Unfortunately I did most of my console
buying before the Everdrive stuff came out. Neo Flash products suck, avoid.
 
I checked the number of CFFA3000 cards when this thread started a couple of days ago = 50. Just checked now = 47. "Fast" is a relative thing, but they're going... going...
 
dabone said:
So, I don't really need the 4meg card to play around in gs/os?
Good, then I can save that money and put it to the new amiga 500 accelerator/ide controller coming out.

When my CFFA gets here I will have solid state storage for all my main retro computers.

Commodore/iec = uiec
Commodore PET = petdisk
Coco = Drivepak (Homemade clone using a modem 300 pak)
Atari = Sio2sd
Apple = CFFA3000
Tandy 1000 = XT-IDE with CF Adapter.
Amiga = I currently use a 1200, and it's got IDE built in with a CF card attached.

Floppies are vintage, but a pain in the ass to use.;)
Click to expand...

Yea, I'm exploring those technologies too: I've got

BBC: Acorn BBC b MMC solid state disk drive
Pet: PetDisk
Lisa 2: X/Profile
Apple: CFFA3000 (coming)

I'm interested in some others so I'll check out those Atari and 64 ones you mention. I'm also looking at an HxC floppy emulator for my Amiga and 16 bit Atari.

Tez
 
I hadn't heard about the IDE interface for Amiga 500, got a link?
Click to expand...

ACA520, not shipping yet, but very soon.
It allows a ACA1220 (68020 with 128 Meg) or ACA1232 (68030 with 128 Meg) to also be installed into a 500.

I want one for my 500+.

Later,
dabone
 
smp said:
Hello all,

I received a CFFA3000 from Rich Dreher last week, and now that I've had some time to play around with it, all I can say is WOW!

This is a fantastic addition to my Apple IIGS system. I have hear others praise it, and all the praise that is out there is perfectly well deserved.

I now essentially have a hard disk in my system, as well as file storage for every .DSK and .2MG disk image that I have downloaded from the Internet. The card comes with built-in software to look at the memory stick that I have all my disk images on, and it is easy to pop into the menu on startup and make certain that all the disk images that I want get loaded for the session. It took some time for me to play around with it, and I found that one of my old, small memory sticks had some problems, but once I got the hang of things (and a new memory stick, just to be certain), it all is pretty simple.

This is easily the best accessory that anyone could purchase for their Apple II system. It is absolutely fantastic!

smp
Click to expand...

+1 (or +1000 if I could). Looking at the recipients' list on Rich web site and listening his interview on Open-Apple podcast, I also realize it opens the door for face to face Apple II work with others in my area who ordered this CFFA3000 batch. That will hopefully be another benefit of the card.
 
dabone said:
ACA520, not shipping yet, but very soon.
It allows a ACA1220 (68020 with 128 Meg) or ACA1232 (68030 with 128 Meg) to also be installed into a 500.
Click to expand...

That's awesome, but where do I buy one? Can I get on a pre-order list? How much do they cost? Do they come assembled or as a kit?

I did google "ACA520" but I found a lot of discussion of the board but no offical information.
 
Sorry, it's been changed to the ACA500, 68000 with extra ram and a ide port, and it's not shipping yet.
It's by Jens and will be out soon. (Maybe a month maybe 6, but soon.)

Here is where he is describing the new products.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=65087


Later,
dabone


And on a side note, my CFFA is out for delivery today, but my office is closed so I have to wait till monday...:cry:
 
Ok, got my CFFA3000 in today, and I can see where I could use some more ram.
Booting the hdv and also having 5 more mounted, I have 64k of ram free.
Mounting the system disk and 1 other hdv, 185k.
I know nothing about gs/os, any cheat sheets on the web?

Thanks.
later,
dabone
 
Found a copy of cider press and made a blank hd image, and installed a fresh copy of gsos 6.1,
Now I've got 463k free.

Time to keep playing a bit.

Later,
dabone
 
In fact, in the CiderPress Souceforge page you can found a tutorial as well an old-fashioned "video" guide to setup a CF card for use with CFFA. Being also an Apple noob, they'll be extremely useful for sure.

I don't have myself a CFFA card yet; but I hope that I'll be able to purchase one of these fine pieces of hardware soon :)

Thanks for sharing your experiences!
 
Last edited:
I have one of the older CFFA units (like 2006ish run) and I LOVE it in my IIgs. Rich has been an awesome resource to the Apple II community in making these cards.

I am now planning on 2x of the CFFA3000's for my //e and ][+. Disks and disk drives are getting to be problematic to maintain on those systems. With the CFFA's I know all my old Apples will have readable working media in ANOTHER 25 years.
 
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