Hello again,
I did it: bought a CFFA, and got it in the mail a couple of days later. Very well packed with
a CDROM. But Rich sent a note, saying he was temporarily out of the 16 mb CF cards that
he is now usually shipping with the CFFA, and that he plans to mail one to me soon.
I was planning on getting a bigger CF card, like maybe 256 mb, so I could have at least 4
partitions of about 32 mb, which I understand is the maximum size volume that's address-
able in ProDos, and ProDos is all I use on my IIgs.
I went to RadioShack. The smallest CF card they sell at this time is a 1 gb SanDisk Type II f
or $12.99. I got one, and with tax it came to exactly $14.00.
Before I put the CFFA with the new CF card into my IIgs, I turned the IIgs on, pressed the
Apple keyboard key (just to the left of the space-bar), held it down, then simultaneously
held down the control-key and the escape-key to enter the so-called Desk Accessories,
then navigated to Control Panel, and to Slots. I changed Slot 7 to "Your Card" and Startup
Slot to "Scan", then exited the Desk Accessories and turned off my IIgs.
Next I carefully inserted the CF card into the CFFA and then the CFFA into slot 7 of my IIgs.
My IIgs has
(1) A Grapple printer card in slot 1
(2) A Zip Accelerator card that is not overclocked in slot 3
Plus an auxiliary 4 mb memory card and a 3.5" Apple disk drive.
I put a bootable ProDos disk in the 3.5" drive and turned on the IIgs, which gave me a
message that the device in Slot 7 was not bootable. I was surprised, because I thought
setting Startup to Scan means the IIgs would be able to find the bootable disk in Slot 5,
Drive 1. I reset the IIgs using the control-key and the key on the upper-right side of the
keyboard with the left-pointing triangle. I've heard of this key called the reset-key.
Next I type PR#5 to boot from Slot 5, which my IIgs did, and I was in ProDos, where
I ran CopyIIPlus 8.4. Used the operation named Catalog to see, as usual, the 3.5" drive
in Slot 5, Drive 1, and /RAM in Slot 5, Drive 2, which I think is the auxiliary memory.
But now additionally I could see.
Slot 7, Drive 1, Non-ProDos Volume
Slot 7, Drive 2, Non-ProDos Volume
Slot 4, Drive 1, Non-ProDos Volume
Slot 4, Drive 1, Non-ProDos Volume
Slot 6, Drive 1,
Slot 6, Drive 2,
I formatted each of the top four volumes as ProDos volumes and left Slot 6 alone.
Slot 7, Drives 1 and 2 formatted to 65535 Blocks of memory. I think a block contains about
1/2 kb, if so, 65535 blocks is about 32 mb, as advertised.
Slot 4, Drive 1, formatted to 43741 Blocks, which would be about 21 mb.
Slot 4, Drive 2, formatted to 41810 Blocks, which would be about 20 mb.
I wondered why the volumes in Slot 4 did not format to about 32 mb, but it really doesn't
matter to me. The total of about 100 mb in the 4 volumes is more than I'll ever use.
Next I copied ProDos 2.0.3, Basic.System, CopyIIPlus 8.4, and Apple's ProDos System
Utilities Filer Version 1.1 all to Slot 7, Drive 1.
Then I began to copy about 4 mb of AppleSoft Basic programs that I've written over the
years into Slot 7, Drive 2. All went very well and the machine seemed run faster than it
did with a SCSI Hard Drive.
I turned the IIgs off, then turned it back on, and it booted from Slot 7, Drive 1.
Over the next few days I gave the CFFA a real workout. I did what I normally do, running
lots of the basic programs, which wrangle lots of data. Not a single glitch. I do not run
games or other sorts of software, so I can't comment on that.
In the past a few times a year I'd have trouble with my scsi hard drives or scsi zip drives
which were daisy-chained off an Apple SCSI Card. I think this was the last version Apple
made. I also have a RAM Fast SCSI Card that seemed to be less reliable, and a Focus Card
that was less reliable yet. I think in all cases the unreliability was due to the drives and to
the power supplies in the cases. The hard drives and cases were 15 to 20 years old, and
the Zip Drives were old too.
I've only had the CFFA for a few days, but I like it well enough to order a second one from
Rich. I'll put the second one in my other IIgs, which is just same but has an 8 mb auxiliary
memory card.
I think the CFFA has alleviated my main concern. Now I need to find a way to back-up my
data, which is about 3 mb. Too big for convenience with 3.5" disks, which each hold about
800 kb, and so would take about 4 or 5 disks. I don't want to use Zip Disks, unless I can get
them to run without a SCSI hard Drive on the end of the daisy-chain, which I've never been
able to do. Can anyone in this forum do it?
Maybe I need a DIY project like the one by oraclemaster at
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=123which might be within my meager skills. If so, I could copy data from my "master" CF card
in my IIgs to a second CF card poking outside the back of the IIgs case. I wonder if others in
this forum find this to be practical, or is there a better idea for regularly backing up a few
mb of data?
I know I put a lot detail into this posting in the hopes that it may encourage others to give
the CFFA card a try. It seems like a very useful product and a good contribution to the Apple II.
Best wishes,
DrTom
San Diego, California