Re: Vulcan based SSD Apple II/gs

[Kevin Dady <kevin@hackaday.com>]

On Jun 1, 8:35 pm, "Bill Garber" <willy4...@comcast.net> wrote:
> "Mayor" <noe...@nowhe.re> wrote in messagenews: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

I don't know if I am repeating myself, but I am sure I have mentioned
it here before, SD, its easy and current. I say that as someone just
now reading a book about asm language, and was only a user of the IIe
my parents owned till 94. So outside of bit-bang the SD, R/W  get 2
GIG!!! I am just passing a thought along.