Re: Apple //c smartport compact flash adapter

[Eric Rucker <bhtooefr@gmail.com>]

On Feb 3, 6:58 am, Delfs <eeast...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 27, 5:48 pm, Robert Justice <rjust...@internode.on.net> wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
>
> > I have been working on building a compact flash adpater that uses the
> > smartport interface via the external disk connector on the Apple //c.
> > I have hand wired a prototype and have this working so that i can boot
> > prodos from it.
> > The firmware in the AVR supports 4 partitions on the CF. I have also
> > used the dos.master games image and that works fine also.
>
> > Details are in a quick write up at this link:http://www.users.on.net/~rjustice/SmartportCFA/SmartportCFA.htm
>
> > Hope you guys find it interesting.
>
> > regards
> > Rob
>
> Wow, this is fantastic work.  We no longer have to consider opening
> and hacking circuits inside the IIc to get mass storage. (Of course we
> can, but it is more work.)  As someone pointed out, the smartport
> exists in other Apple IIs as well, so this could be used with a IIc+,
> IIgs or possibly other slotted Apple IIs.  I do not know if there is a
> smartport adapter card, the liron card maybe? I think about any mass
> storage available would be mappable to the smartport with the ground
> breaking work done thus far.  Very Kewl as some might say.
>
> Thankx,
> Ed

Yes, the Liron card should work with this - the Liron card is an
implementation of the //c SmartPort on a card.

There are still advantages to putting devices inside the //c - the
biggest one being that the SmartPort is slow - but such approaches are
a pain to deal with - the best ones involve removing the CPU and MMU
from the motherboard, the card sitting in those sockets, and the CPU
and MMU being relocated to the card. If you do that, it won't work on
the IIc Plus (where you have to piggyback under the accelerator ASIC
rather than the CPU), and if you want users to be able to expand RAM
with that card, you either have to provide piggyback RAM, or provide
MemExp RAM if you're restricting yourself to MemExp //cs. (Myself, I
own a ROM 0 //c, so a MemExp card would be useless to me - I'd lose my
Z-RAM II, so I'd have no expansion RAM, and no Z80 - not that I use CP/
M much, but still, it's nice to have. That also means that piggyback
cards are in danger of feature creep, to prevent those problems.)