Compact Flash adapter

[DeltaDon]

Correct CF adapter has male pins and plugs directly into the connector on the G753 caddy. No need for an extra converter board.

Try this link: https://www.amazon.com/Yuly-Compact...d+ssd+adapter+for+laptop+,aps,245&sr=8-1&th=1

 

[DeltaDon]

You need an adapter with male pins! Open Amazon and enter "chenyang CF Compact Flash Memory Card to 2.5" 44Pin IDE Hard Disk Drive HDD SSD Adapter for Laptop" and you should see this:

 

[jknightandkarr]

You need an adapter with male pins! Open Amazon and enter "chenyang CF Compact Flash Memory Card to 2.5" 44Pin IDE Hard Disk Drive HDD SSD Adapter for Laptop" and you should see this:

I know, i've seen couple here n there with black plastic around the pins, not often though. I've got 2 i can try, need to download the software and try my card out, haven't had time to mess with it lately.

 

[DeltaDon]

The black plastic ones are female and so are the connectors inside the laptop caddy so if using a female CF adapter you need to also have a male to male adapter. Just get the correct male CF adapter and things work without any more pieces necessary. The only software you might need is something that allows the CF card itself to report as a fixed hard drive and not a removable device. DOS will not boot from the CF if it isn't reporting as a fixed device. You can load data onto it and read it, but will not boot to DOS. I use Rufus to rewrite the necessary stuff on the CF card, but I'm sure there's other means of doing the same thing.

 

[Krille]

DOS will not boot from the CF if it isn't reporting as a fixed device. You can load data onto it and read it, but will not boot to DOS. I use Rufus to rewrite the necessary stuff on the CF card, but I'm sure there's other means of doing the same thing.

I think you're conflating two different issues. DOS doesn't care whether the boot drive is fixed or removable. More modern operating systems do, however. Using tools to rewrite stuff on the CF card (specifically the MBR) removes code that is incompatible with 8088/8086 CPUs. (Which is a very common problem with CF cards.)

 

[seaken]

I think what was meant is that the CF card won't be available as a boot device unless it is properly identified as a fixed drive (hard drive). It won't be used like floppy would for booting.

Correct me if I have that wrong.

Seaken

 

[Malc]

Like Krille said, DOS doesn't care, Dos will happily boot from a CF or Flash drive that is seen as 'Removable' as long as the drive has been setup properly.

I think what was meant is that the CF card won't be available as a boot device unless it is properly identified as a fixed drive (hard drive)

True for more modern OS's and software as Krille said.

 

[DeltaDon]

Yeah, I should have said you can't load Windows from DOS onto a CF and expect it to boot to Windows from the CF unless you first configure the CF card to act like a fixed hard drive. DOS will copy all the Windows files over to the CF, but no bueno. Arrancará en Windows Which is more Spanish than I learned in 25 years while I was living in California.

 

[jknightandkarr]

Well, a 512 Mb IDE DOM, an Amazon adapter and Rufus and my Green 753 is up and running! Might see about larger drives!

 

[3lectr1c]

512MB is pretty small for a Pentium laptop - how much more expensive are 4GB DOMs? That’s the highest you’re gonna be able to go without overlay software (which works fine as a solution too). Something like a 6 or 7GB drive would work too (anything under 8) but solid state media doesn’t usually come in those capacities.
Edit: looks like they’re pretty darn cheap.

 

[DeltaDon]

Nice to see you got DOS running. Maybe add Win 3 next?

I agree that 1/2 GB would be limiting unless just using DOS. Two to four GB is a lot better if running Windows 95/98/ME and plenty big unless you load a bunch of games or office programs. I would suggest that having a PCMCIA card that uses a second CF or SD card to expand storage is also very doable.

I opp'ed for that somewhat larger capacity of 2GB for the primary drive size since some time ago I lucked into an auction lot of 2GB CF cards for very little money each. I've loaded various OS's (DOS, FreeDOS, Win 95, Win98, WinME, Win2K and a couple types of Llinux) onto them so that I can swap them in and out for testing. Ialso use a few more up to 4GB for use with a PCMCIA card to load utilities etc. While I do have 8 and 16GB CF's that I use with other laptops that can use up to 32GB drives. I also have a lot of 8GB and larger spinning drives I kept from my laptop business days.

Prices on old PATA spinning drives in smaller sizes compared to a CF or SD cards, even with the cost of the adapter, just doesn't make much sense unless going for the complete retro feel including head clunks and bearing noises is key.

 

[Chuck(G)]

As an alternative, I've found that the 2.5" 120GB SATA SSDs are relatively cheap. I use a couple on old systems with the Startech SATA-PATA bridge cards. Lots of space and no problems for me.

 

[jknightandkarr]

512MB is pretty small for a Pentium laptop - how much more expensive are 4GB DOMs? That’s the highest you’re gonna be able to go without overlay software (which works fine as a solution too). Something like a 6 or 7GB drive would work too (anything under 8) but solid state media doesn’t usually come in those capacities.
Edit: looks like they’re pretty darn cheap.

I got these 5 512Mb as I was low on cash and wasn't sure if they'd work or not, so figured it was better to risk alittle cash then more, but I plan on bigger ones, now that I know they work.

Nice to see you got DOS running. Maybe add Win 3 next?

I agree that 1/2 GB would be limiting unless just using DOS. Two to four GB is a lot better if running Windows 95/98/ME and plenty big unless you load a bunch of games or office programs. I would suggest that having a PCMCIA card that uses a second CF or SD card to expand storage is also very doable.

I opp'ed for that somewhat larger capacity of 2GB for the primary drive size since some time ago I lucked into an auction lot of 2GB CF cards for very little money each. I've loaded various OS's (DOS, FreeDOS, Win 95, Win98, WinME, Win2K and a couple types of Llinux) onto them so that I can swap them in and out for testing. Ialso use a few more up to 4GB for use with a PCMCIA card to load utilities etc. While I do have 8 and 16GB CF's that I use with other laptops that can use up to 32GB drives. I also have a lot of 8GB and larger spinning drives I kept from my laptop business days.

Prices on old PATA spinning drives in smaller sizes compared to a CF or SD cards, even with the cost of the adapter, just doesn't make much sense unless going for the complete retro feel including head clunks and bearing noises is key.

I installed Win 3.11 already, so far only issue I have had was the optical drive, not playing music discs, but ran data cds good. No idea. lol I will see about a PCMCIA CF adapter or 2. My Z Star could use the space too.

As an alternative, I've found that the 2.5" 120GB SATA SSDs are relatively cheap. I use a couple on old systems with the Startech SATA-PATA bridge cards. Lots of space and no problems for me.

Never heard of them before. Not sure if it would fit or not.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Never heard of them before. Not sure if it would fit or not.

I can't say, as I"m not a laptop person.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I installed Win 3.11 already, so far only issue I have had was the optical drive, not playing music discs, but ran data cds good. No idea. lol I will see about a PCMCIA CF adapter or 2. My Z Star could use the space too.

Digital audio over the IDE bus wasn't a thing until the very late 90s and Windows 98. Before that, CD drives had an audio out port on the back of them that you had to plug into the sound card on the PC, or plug headphones into the headphone jack on the drive (if it had one.) PCs were too slow to do realtime DA processing until the Pentium era, but were still too slow to do it in the background until the PIII era.

 

[jknightandkarr]

Digital audio over the IDE bus wasn't a thing until the very late 90s and Windows 98. Before that, CD drives had an audio out port on the back of them that you had to plug into the sound card on the PC, or plug headphones into the headphone jack on the drive (if it had one.) PCs were too slow to do realtime DA processing until the Pentium era, but were still too slow to do it in the background until the PIII era.

I remember those all too well. first pc was a Tandy 286, still building mine everytime since I assembled my 486 DX4/100Mhz from old parts.
It wouldn't even read the disc, but don't matter. Don't use cds much anymore, so no big deal.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

It wouldn't even read the disc, but don't matter. Don't use cds much anymore, so no big deal.

And it's not going to, Windows 3.x used the "Multimedia PC" standard where the CD-ROM drive itself was the playback medium, you couldn't view what was on it, just play it with the CD player application. Multi-mode format CDs should be supported though (like games with a Redbook audio sound track), you just won't be able to view the soundtrack in Windows.

 

[Plasma]

Digital audio over the IDE bus wasn't a thing until the very late 90s and Windows 98. Before that, CD drives had an audio out port on the back of them that you had to plug into the sound card on the PC, or plug headphones into the headphone jack on the drive (if it had one.) PCs were too slow to do realtime DA processing until the Pentium era, but were still too slow to do it in the background until the PIII era.

There is no "DA processing" done by the CPU when you play a CD via DAE. Any PC capable of shoving around 350 KB/s of data can do it.

Early drives simply didn't have DAE capability. In terms of just playing a CD, it's also wasteful for the CPU to read the digital CD data just to send it directly to the sound card. But you could easily do this with a 386.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

There is no "DA processing" done by the CPU when you play a CD via DAE. Any PC capable of shoving around 350 KB/s of data can do it.

What is "DAE", do you mean CD-DA? That was part of the Redbook audio specification in 1980. CD-ROM drives from the beginning were able to play it, that's what they were originally designed for. CD-ROM data wasn't a thing until 1983 in Yellow book. Multi session discs and burnable media were much later with the Orange book in 1990.

You also don't need 350 KB/s of data. The original 1x spec CD-ROM drives were 150 KB/s. 2x and 4x drives didn't come until the early 90s.

In terms of just playing a CD, it's also wasteful for the CPU to read the digital CD data just to send it directly to the sound card. But you could easily do this with a 386.

No, you couldn't. If you had a period correct 386, there was no such thing as digital audio from the optical drive over the system bus. The first consumer sound card that had a CD audio input was the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 in 1991. And it couldn't play Redbook Audio at the official 44100 kHz stereo spec. It was either 22050 kHz stereo or 44100 kHz mono.

In the late 80s, there was no consumer level sound card that could even do PCM audio. Everything was AM, FM, PWM or limited ADPCM.

The 386 has trouble even doing multi-channel FM synth at the same time as something else (ie. games) without having performance issues.

 

[Plasma]

What is "DAE", do you mean CD-DA? That was part of the Redbook audio specification in 1980. CD-ROM drives from the beginning were able to play it, that's what they were originally designed for. CD-ROM data wasn't a thing until 1983 in Yellow book. Multi session discs and burnable media were much later with the Orange book in 1990.

You also don't need 350 KB/s of data. The original 1x spec CD-ROM drives were 150 KB/s. 2x and 4x drives didn't come until the early 90s.

DAE is Digital Audio Extraction.

44100 x 16 bits x 2 channels = 175 KB. Then double that, to read the data from the drive and write it to the sound buffer. Thus, you need to move 350 KB/s worst case.

No, you couldn't. If you had a period correct 386, there was no such thing as digital audio from the optical drive over the system bus.

Yes, you can. A 386 has more than enough horsepower to play 16-bit sound at 44.1 KHz. Nobody said anything about "period correct" drives. Go back and read my post.

The first consumer sound card that had a CD audio input was the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 in 1991. And it couldn't play Redbook Audio at the official 44100 kHz stereo spec. It was either 22050 kHz stereo or 44100 kHz mono.

The CD audio input on the Sound Blaster Pro is analog, and it goes to an analog mixer. The Sound Blaster does not know or care about the Redbook Audio spec.

In the late 80s, there was no consumer level sound card that could even do PCM audio. Everything was AM, FM, PWM or limited ADPCM.

Again, incorrect. Every sound card since the Sound Blaster 1.0 supports PCM audio.

The 386 has trouble even doing multi-channel FM synth at the same time as something else (ie. games) without having performance issues.

There are literally hundreds of games that disprove this assertion.