Whoa. This looks freaking AWESOME. I imagine this would be incredibly addictive. I just got a CF card adapter for my ZX Spectrum recently, and I play it so much more often now. This would be fantastic to have, thanks for showing!
I've got mine, I'm just waiting on a CF card from Amazon to install so I can upgrade the firmware, very excited to get it up and running. This is an amazing alternative to trying to find a compatible SCSI card and drive for any Apple II, I plan on putting it into my IIgs so I can stop booting the system from a floppy!
Too friggin' cool. Nice alternative to a chattering floppy drive and the wear and tear on your diskettes. Dave had some obsolete CF cards he was trying to offload for free when we were last up there. They didn't sell in his last garage sale.
Very cool! I love it when they make upgrades like this for old machines, and this seems like a real must have for the Apple IIGS! By the way, that stuff about games not being hard drive installable... it's (as you most likely know already) the same with the Amiga, and that's one of the things I hate the most about old games for systems that did that... really horrible DRM crap, forcing you to wait for much longer than necessary.... every time you boot a game! It's really quite ridiculous.
@pocketmego I believe this card and Briel's mp3 card are the only two peripheral cards with USB input for the Apple II. I need to get my hands on that mp3 card at some point!
@phreakindee I just love new technology being invented for old systems like this and your ZX Spectrum. You're definitely right, the ease of use makes you play the system more often. 5 minute boot times can be a bit discouraging.
Just use 'parted' to create a master boot record in Windows. Granted, it's a fairly dangerous utility, since it runs at the command line. So it's good to read up on the documentation first, since it can wipe your main hard disk, or at least it's MBR.
The slot 4 trick won't work on a ROM 01 if you need a mouse on GS/OS. ROM 3 lets you set it to "Your Card" and still access the mouse under GS/OS only (8-bit software needs the firmware still). This card doesn't support DMA (yet! a firmware update will apparently fix that), so thats likely whats causing the speed difference. I'll be able to benchmark against my DMA RamFAST SCSI card when my CFFA finally shows up. The only images that won't work on this card is demos that access the IWM directly.
@laffer35 Yeah, old games (especially DOS conversions) for the Amiga and IIGS were done so sloppy at times that the inefficiently programmed conversions resulted in unnecessarily long boot times and not being hard drive installable.
Whoa. This looks freaking AWESOME. I imagine this would be incredibly addictive. I just got a CF card adapter for my ZX Spectrum recently, and I play it so much more often now. This would be fantastic to have, thanks for showing!
I've got mine, I'm just waiting on a CF card from Amazon to install so I can upgrade the firmware, very excited to get it up and running. This is an amazing alternative to trying to find a compatible SCSI card and drive for any Apple II, I plan on putting it into my IIgs so I can stop booting the system from a floppy!
Too friggin' cool. Nice alternative to a chattering floppy drive and the wear and tear on your diskettes. Dave had some obsolete CF cards he was trying to offload for free when we were last up there. They didn't sell in his last garage sale.
Very cool! I love it when they make upgrades like this for old machines, and this seems like a real must have for the Apple IIGS!
By the way, that stuff about games not being hard drive installable... it's (as you most likely know already) the same with the Amiga, and that's one of the things I hate the most about old games for systems that did that... really horrible DRM crap, forcing you to wait for much longer than necessary.... every time you boot a game! It's really quite ridiculous.
@pocketmego
I believe this card and Briel's mp3 card are the only two peripheral cards with USB input for the Apple II. I need to get my hands on that mp3 card at some point!
@Brian: the first USB devices are the iDisk and Nishida Radio's devices.
@phreakindee
I just love new technology being invented for old systems like this and your ZX Spectrum. You're definitely right, the ease of use makes you play the system more often. 5 minute boot times can be a bit discouraging.
Just use 'parted' to create a master boot record in Windows. Granted, it's a fairly dangerous utility, since it runs at the command line. So it's good to read up on the documentation first, since it can wipe your main hard disk, or at least it's MBR.
The slot 4 trick won't work on a ROM 01 if you need a mouse on GS/OS. ROM 3 lets you set it to "Your Card" and still access the mouse under GS/OS only (8-bit software needs the firmware still). This card doesn't support DMA (yet! a firmware update will apparently fix that), so thats likely whats causing the speed difference. I'll be able to benchmark against my DMA RamFAST SCSI card when my CFFA finally shows up. The only images that won't work on this card is demos that access the IWM directly.
@laffer35
Yeah, old games (especially DOS conversions) for the Amiga and IIGS were done so sloppy at times that the inefficiently programmed conversions resulted in unnecessarily long boot times and not being hard drive installable.
I bought the reactive micro card, because the cfa3000 was much too expensive.
Is your GS accelerated?
I plan on trying to get a Smart port virtual drive from spvhd.org if i cant get a CFFA 3000.
hello
i would like te create a 32m hard drive on my cffa card to install gsos.would you in your grear kindnzss help me out?…;-)
What kind of usb is that looks like a little vape pen box? Haha