Re: Apple //c smartport compact flash adapter

[Delfs <eeastman@gmail.com>]

On Jan 29, 12:34 am, Robert Justice <rjust...@internode.on.net> wrote:
> It could be used internally by piggy backing on the existing internal
> drive connector. The Smartport interface does not care about the drive
> select that would be different on the internal connector.
>
> What wouldn't work, would be hooking an external smartport drive up.
> This is because the smartport init method relies on the each drive in
> the chain opening up a latch that stops one of the phase lines being
> through connected to the next drive. As each drive in the chain
> responds to the init packet, it through connects the phase line to the
> next drive.
>
> I could implement this behaviour if it is used as an external drive,
> it would just need and extra i/o line.
>
> I had a quick look inside my //c. If you were to use a micro SD card,
> i believe it would fit through one of the slots in the back. There may
> be enough room in the back to fit the board and run a ribbon cable to
> the internal drive connector. Perhaps it could be made to detect if a
> card is inserted, and if not, disable itself. That way an external
> drive could be used if needed.
>
> Thanks for the link to the connectors Sean, although i would need the
> male version. I'll contact them and see if they are also available.
> And i'll email you about the possibility of getting a unidisk from you
> to test.
>
> Is there a preference for either CF or SD card?
>
> And thanks for all of your positive comments.
>
> /Rob

Well I'm still not sure how you would hook one up on the inside, but I
think a standard 'dongle' package could hold the necessary circuit and
card, regardless fo type used.  Personally I think that if the IDE
implementaiton is already covered then the rest are as well...

I have used 3 different SD to CF adapters on my CFFA card, all work
flawlessly.  For that matter when I figured out that they make an CF
to IDE adapter, I have tried those as well, same results, excellent.
And when I got my first micro SD card, I slipped that into the SD
adapter and put that into the SD>CF  adapter and it worked too. Ive
even used the adapter off of USB card readers, cause I like to torture
1s and 0s and just wanted to see how many conversions it can go
through.  I think the answer was, a block device is a block device and
it was readily transparent to the host hardware, be it IDE, CFFA, or
what have you.

So my slotted Apple IIs have had a CFFA, a Focus and a TurboIDE with
CF, SD, MicroSD, 3.5" IDE, and 2.5" IDE using the file and partition
formats available to the originating hardware and have worked without
incident.

Long and short, I suspect this work will go far towards making a
CFFA2C adapter to allow the sealed II market (chuckles) to get mass
storage, regardless of the media.

Thankx,
Ed