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."

Comments

Don't forget the 8GB of the IDE64 :)

[mbpark]

It's about time Apples caught up to the Commodore 64 ;).

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 .d64 images total) and still have room left over for the applications.

Of course, you can go for the 8GB HD and a CD-ROM :). Some of those screenshots are pretty nuts. I can't imagine loading the Windows 95 CD-ROM using LOAD"$",8

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 :).

Re:Why?

[Zeinfeld]

How can the parent post be modded down as redundant when it is the 2nd post made? That just makes no sense.

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...