CFFA3000 now accepting orders.

[Flack]

The CFFA3000 is a card for Apple II computers that lets you play Apple II disk images directly off of a USB memory stick. If I understand it right, it is essentially a "flash cart" for the Apple II. Last year (or maybe the year before that) they released something like 200 of these cards. I missed out. This year they are making 500 of them. 200 of them are already sold, and I got the e-mail last Friday. If you are interested in one, here's the e-mail and the information, slightly condensed:

We are now accepting orders for the CFFA3000. We have built 500 cards for Run 2, but because of high demand, please limit your order to 1 or 2 cards per customer and/or address.

There are two products listed on the web site:

1) The CFFA3000 (US$149.95) which includes a manual on CD-ROM.
2) Optional accessory: CFFA3000 remote switch and cable (US$19.95).

The remote switch is not required to use the CFFA3000, but is useful for people who use multi-disk programs. With this remote you can trigger disk image switching while a program is running. If you don’t have the remote, there are two other ways to deal with in program disk switching:

1) On an Apple IIgs, use the CFFA3000's on-screen menus via Apple-Control-Esc. However, most but not all software allows access to the menus without rebooting.
2) Use separate flash drives for each floppy in the disk set.

To place an order, please go to the following web site:
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppl ... erForm.php

Once I have received your order, you can follow the status of your order on my web site:
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppl ... Status.php

Please note that we will begin shipping orders July 2, 2012. We will ship about 50 units per week so be aware that it will take 3 months or more to ship all 500 boards. Refer to the order status link above for the estimated ship date of your order.

[Flack]

Based on my invoice number, I am #170 in line.

Just in case I didn't make it clear, what this device allows you to do is download Apple disk images from the Internet, put them on a USB stick, insert them into a real Apple II computer, and play them.

As a guy who has an Apple II (okay, 6 of them) but hasn't had a reason to hook one up yet, this is a godsend.

For someone that doesn't have an Apple II, this probably wouldn't be very useful.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Well, I guess my question is: where does the USB stick plug into the Apple II?

[Flack]

Did you just ask me to tell you where to stick it? You are the greatest straight man ever.

Seriously though, the CFFA3000 is an internal card that goes inside the Apple and has a USB port on the back. That means it only works on Apples that you could open up and install cards in (Apple II, Apple II+, Apple IIe, Apple IIgs). I guess it would be easier to just say that it does not work on the Apple IIc, the compact model (the one that I had in the floor of my computer room, leaning up against the giant floppy disk drawers).

Out in the garage, I have a Franklin Ace 1000. I believe it is 100% Apple II compatible, so I'm hoping the card works on it. If not, I'll have to start trying out the pile of Apples I have lying around and find one that works and has all the keys. Or wait until OVGE rolls around next year and buy a stack of old computers.

The card is $150, but for an additional $20 you get an add-on that allows you to change disk images on the fly. Without the $20 add-on, you cannot hot swap disks, meaning if you are playing a game like Bard's Tale that requires you to change disks, you're screwed. I don't know why anyone would buy the card without buying the add-on. Even if you don't think you need it now, what are you going to do down the road when you decide you DO need one? My guess is they're not hanging on a peg in Walmart ...

What originally drew me to collecting console copiers was that you could get software for free (nooch) and play it on the original hardware. To me, it's the best of both worlds. Because of differences in floppy formats and drive compatibility, transferring disks between non-compatible computer systems has become a pain in the ass that requires many hoops, many jumps, and usually, some dinero to boot. There are ways to convert Apple II disk images to real floppies, but it requires multiple computers, serial cables, software, and of course, real blank floppies. This thing, if it works as advertised, should let me download old Apple II games, copying the images to a USB stick, insert it into a real Apple II machine and play them. Can't ask for much more than that.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

It works on the christing IIGS? God fucking dammit. I knew I should have taken Ed up on his offer for a free IIGS.

Why the hell isn't he selling those individually? Do you know how many people would have bought a IIGS if he broke the set up? Well, me.

Also, I can't find the thread but I don't want you to mail me an Atari power supply, because you were nice enough to host us this weekend and asking you to go to the post office for the second time post-OVGE would be a violation of everything we as men hold dear.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Just some quick fun facts about the piece of shit iPhone I bought a few years ago. This was a $700 phone that cost me $200 to get. This was a SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLAR ITEM that now can't hold a charge for 24 hours, even with WiFi and cell connectivity turned off.

I just wanted the thing to serve MP3s again. That's all.

1) I downloaded iTunes. Went to install it. It took ***twenty fucking minutes*** to install iTunes ON A GOD DAMN SOLID STATE DRIVE.

2) I then got to play the fun game where you try to find a USB port to charge the piece of shit. The USB connectors on the front of my work PC, which work on everything else, wasn't strong enough.

3) Milker had a AC adaptor - to USB - to Apple proprietary shit plug and that didn't work.

4) This is the best part. I am going to "break out" of numbers because it's just that good.

Are you ready?

OK.

So the thing wasn't getting enough juice to charge itself. All right. This is how it told me:

It. Blinked. A. Power. Plug.

Yes. That's right. Rather than say, "Insufficient power to charge device" it BLINKED A FUCKING PICTURE OF A FUCKING POWER PLUG. God for fucking bid they stop being obtuse hipster shits for a fucking SECOND. God for fucking BID. This is why that asshole got the most painful kind of cancer there was. Because of shit like this.

I, like everyone else, had to look the fucking blinking picture up on the Internet to see what it means, because it sure as shit wasn't in a manual.

The iPhone/ iTouch / iPod is the biggest piece of shit electronics I've ever used. My $13 Android phone is a million times better. I am now GLAD that we didn't get those free IIGS systems because fuck Apple, for their entirety of their corporate lives. The biggest failing of Bill Gates was not letting them fucking die when he had the chance to let them perish like the irrelevant fucking trashlords they, collectively, are.

[CO]

Just get a goddam Android phone already.

[co]

Just get a goddam Android phone already.

Sorry, I didn't see you had one already. Why do you have an iPhone anyway? I wouldn't ever use that pos.

[Flack]

We've been extremely happy with all of our iOS devices, including the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. Of course someday I am sure one or all of them will fail, and I will come back to this thread and you can feed those words to me through one of Apple's proprietary little cables.

I don't know what it is about charging these things by the way, but once they get so low, you're right, a standard USB port doesn't seem to wake them back up. Even worse is the iPad, which says that it will only charge from "high output" USB ports (I've yet to find one). The only good thing about that situation is the beefier iPad charger will charge an iPhone in just a few minutes ... although it gets so hot doing this that if you happen to be holding it at the time, you'll get the Apple logo burned into your palm like Major Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[Quinn DeAngelo]

Out in the garage, I have a Franklin Ace 1000. I believe it is 100% Apple II compatible, so I'm hoping the card works on it.

Almost certainly it should work, although I've never seen one personally, I suspect the slot should work. I mean, Franklin simply wholesale copied the entire Apple II ROM and used it in their computers so I can't see them not using the hardware connections.

The name sounded familiar and I looked it up on Wikipedia to confirm what I thought it was. Franklin got sued by Apple. They won in the trial court and lost on appeal. Theirs was the first case to rule that an operating system (the Apple II ROM) as a binary program was copyrightable, and thus Franklin's pure copying of the internal ROM was infringement.

They eventually created a non-infringing bios but it was only partially compatible. The reason this didn't work as well as the non-infringing bios' on IBM-PCs was that programs that used the Apple Rom did so by calling absolute addresses; if you couldn't hit those exact spots for code, programs wouldn't work the same.

IBM-PC programs were designed to use interrupts, which then any competing ROM could just install their own interrupt in its place, and the program would not know the difference.

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Nobody can get no sleep, there's someone on everyone's toes. But when Quinn DeAngelo gets here, everybody's gonna wanna doze.

[Quinn DeAngelo]

I don't know what it is about charging these things by the way, but once they get so low, you're right, a standard USB port doesn't seem to wake them back up. Even worse is the iPad, which says that it will only charge from "high output" USB ports (I've yet to find one).

Originally I wasn't sure, and I thought, "does this mean direct connect to the ports on the case as opposed to a hub?" I know there are some devices that say specifically not to use a hub, to only hook the thing into the USB ports on the case itself. Or maybe it does mean a USB hub that has its own power supply? It's hard to guess what they'd want.

Then again, it is Apple, and everything they make has two objectives, to screw you over buy making you pay Apple extra for something that you could get from a third-party if it worked the same as a PC device, for about 1/10 as much, or to screw you over by buying something a third party has figured out how to reverse engineer, for a mere three times as much as a PC-equivalent item.

After I wrote all that I did a Google search. A "high output usb charger" (use that string and you'll find many references) is one that delivers 2.1 amps. It's a travel charger like something you'd use when you want to plug an American electric shaver in a European hotel bathroom wall socket. They're about twenty bucks.

[Quinn DeAngelo]

if you happen to be holding it at the time, you'll get the Apple logo burned into your palm like Major Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Yeah, and if you're trying to find anything inexpensive from Apple, and you say that out loud to some people, they'll look at each other funny, laugh, and say, "You're looking in the wrong place!"

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Nobody can get no sleep, there's someone on everyone's toes. But when Quinn DeAngelo gets here, everybody's gonna wanna doze.

[Quinn DeAngelo]

The CFFA3000 is a card for Apple II computers that lets you play Apple II disk images directly off of a USB memory stick.

You know it's kind of funny, but I never even thought to ask, who would seriously make equipment for the Apple II? That would be like making memory boards for the Hewlett Packard DecSystem 20.

For what they want for their add in for a now-obsolete computer, you could buy a used PC that has more capacity than an Apple II would even dream of. But, I guess if there's a game you're really addicted to, that only runs on an old Apple II, being able to play it might be worth it, I suppose, at least for the type of people with more cash than sense.

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Nobody can get no sleep, there's someone on everyone's toes. But when Quinn DeAngelo gets here, everybody's gonna wanna doze.

[Flack]

Sorry, I should have been more specific.

When I said I was done engaging you on this forum Paul, that included all your fake accounts too.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

How could you tell?

[Flack]

I have the innate ability to determine when I am talking to Google. Or, more likely, Altavista.

[RetroRomper]

What originally drew me to collecting console copiers was that you could get software for free (nooch) and play it on the original hardware. To me, it's the best of both worlds.

I'd be interested in picking up a CFFA3000 card to burn through my "to play" list of video games, but I explicitly moved away from copiers because...

1) Emulation for most major systems is for all intents and purposes, perfect (technically far from it I know, but the experience is close enough).

2) Having the physical system adds clutter and occupies already precious house space (plus accessories, burnt CDs / floppies and buying these random doodads, etc).

So I'm curious as to your take on the state of Apple IIe emulation and beyond that, why should I invest in a copier for the system along with the physical hardware?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Just get a goddam Android phone already.

Sorry, I didn't see you had one already. Why do you have an iPhone anyway? I wouldn't ever use that pos.

First off, I apologize for hijacking the thread. The USB thing is a cool device. If I wasn't trying to focus on the Amiga computer I have, I'd get one of those.

Secondly, I still have the iPhone (now... just an iTouch I guess) because it has a shitload of music on it. I take it when I fly. And I am stuck in 2009 with songs I liked THEN and either put on the device and/or bought over iTunes.

Since I am flying more and more, I just wanted to get it to where I could put more music on it.

[Flack]

Check out CopyTransManager. It's free, and a great way to move music to/from iOS devices.

For some newer devices it requires iTunes to be on the machine (it uses the driver, I think) but it's so much faster and nicer than using iTunes. You can make playlists, edit mp3 tags, add cover art, whatever you need.

[Flack]

http://www.virtualapple.org/

If you haven't played with that, it's a browser-based Apple II and Apple IIgs emulator. They have pretty much every major games there.

If I didn't have six or seven Apple II machines sitting around waiting on a project, I probably wouldn't buy the card. It certainly wouldn't be worth it if you had to buy a computer to go with the card.

But yeah, I'm sure Apple II emulation is spot on at this point. Not much reason to buy this card unless the original hardware gives you a hard on. Which, for me, it does.