Re: Vulcan based SSD Apple II/gs

["Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net>]

"Mayor" <noeone@nowhe.re> wrote in message news:4de6adb1$0$9082$815e3792@news.qwest.net...
> Yeah I am still out here and still tinkering...
>
> Well  I have been working on this thing for some time and FINALLY got it working so thought I would let others know it IS possible 
> and  also to crow about it:  I succeeded in  connecting an old Vulcan IDE card to a Compact Flash to IDE converter card and 
> thereby creating a (sort of) SSD drive Apple II.
>
> There were  a few caveats, disappointments, reasons to swear along this weird way.
>
> First of all, I have a Vulcan card I purchased off eBay.  It was a 1st gen Rom card to which I upgraded by adding a cloned 1990 
> vintage Rev 2  Vulcan ROM chip to - I happened to have a spare ROM  in the weird cards box..
>
>  Next, as the CF adapter requires power I hooked up the Vulcan power supply and ran a power plug to the inside then hooked that to 
> the 2 live pins on the card.  I think you could do this from the standard power for a fan plug inside the GS but I have yet to try 
> that.  but I will.
>
> Next you need a compact flash but not just ANY Compact Flash, I have a stack from my years of playing with CF<>PCMCIA for use in a 
> Newton.   The procedure is the same.
>
> 1 load CF in the carrier,
>
> 2 power up with a Vulcan floppy in the drive.
>
> 3 Run Parts.Manager
>
> I built a ProDOS floppy because I was sick of the Load GS/Os launch Parts.Manager wait wait wait..
>
> If it formats jump for joy.  If not.  Power off and start over
>
> So far:   SanDisks of size 32 64 and 128mb  do NOT work.  Kodak of 32 and 256mb do not work.  Memorex of 16mb does not work.
>
> What DOES work is one ancient HP 4mb CF or a Lexmark 16 mb though a 32mb Lexmark does NOT work.
>
> II am looking for more cards to try but these antiques are hard to come by in our thirst for the next gigabyte of storage.
>
> Currently I have GS/OS loaded on the 16mb Lexmark and this II/GS boots like it has a hard drive.  Quite except for the fan on the 
> power supply.
>
> -Bart  Keeper of the Network from Heck

As much as I hate to repeat myself, repeat myself, repeat myself, repeat myself,
mine works with the single 20MB CF card that I had laying around in my junk box,
but, I have not been able to get it working with ANY other CF card that I own.

Bill