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CompactFlash / IDE Interface for Apple II
jutpm writes: "This page describes a project to create an IDE / CompactFlash Interface card for 8 bit Apple II series of computers. The card is ProDOS 8 compatible and supports up to 64 Meg (two ProDOS 32Meg drives). I am very impressed with the work this guys work. Definitely a case of old technology meeting new."
Seems like it would be easier to program the interface to the many Apple II emulators out there. Man, Apple II assembly seems so long ago. I guess it actually was so long ago...
I remember once talking to a computer dealer who was one of the last to sell and support Apple II hardware in Canada. He said he had a customer who came in about once a year and bought an Apple II system. He had some system (probable not "critical" in the purest sense, but important anyway) that ran on the Apple. It was cheaper and easier for him to have a good store of backup hardware than port the system up to something else.
You never know where old machines are running in forgotten corners of the world. I do agree that most of them would have been long since ported over to current hardware.
It's about time Apples caught up to the Commodore 64 ;).
:).
.d64 images total) and still have room left over for the applications.
:). Some of those screenshots are pretty nuts. I can't imagine loading the Windows 95 CD-ROM using LOAD"$",8
:).
IDE64 has given them that ability for a while, since all you need is a CF to IDE adapter, and you can have up to two 8 GB harddrives on a c64, or a few CF cards, or a couple of IBM Microdrives
16GB on that machine is completely nuts. You could quite possibly store every c64 game ever made (which I estimate at over 30,000
Of course, you can go for the 8GB HD and a CD-ROM
Meanwhile, Nate has nearly hacked together an MP3 player for the c64 based on the MAS chip. That, and a quickcam, and a few other things. Look at the C= projects page. That's some wicked stuff.
Now that's a hacker's machine. Give them enough time and they even get a workalike UNIX with a GUI and IRC client, as well as a 20Mhz CPU, 16MB RAM, and many other cool things. From what I hear, XGA video and PCI are next.
I always did like these hackers of older systems. I would enjoy seeing those optimization techniques applied to modern code and compilers, especially gcc
Perhaps because the question is so obvious it hardly needs to be stated.
The IDE controller/emulator in the CF card is almost certainly many times faster and more powerful than the Apple II.
Still I can see a reason for building a device like that. The Apple ][ disk drives were 5 1/4" and sloooooow. Maintaining them is tricky and the media is rapidly reaching its sell by date. The interface would be worth it simply to be able to take a library of Apple ][ floppies and read them onto a modern media.
The apple II might be somewhat defunct, but there are still important bits of data stored on Apple II disks, like experimental results, audit reports and the like. The kind of information that you simply don't want to lose. Unless perhaps your accountants are you know who and your tax strategy consists of forming 861 shell companies and making large campaign contributions...
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
This would not surprise me. Most people who actually have working systems doing a job know that, despite popular myth, computers don't become obsolete. They break down eventually, but until they do, they can still run all the software they ever could at the same speed they always did. If an Apple II was fine to do a job in 1979, it's still fine to do that same job in 2002. If the job requirements haven't changed, and it's still working, why waste money upgrading to something you don't need and throw away a perfectly good solution because some idiots think if it's not the latest and greatest hardware it's useless?
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."