CFFA3000 Video Posted
schmidtd
introductory video of the various features of the CFFA3000. You guys
already know all the info in here, but in case you need a CFFA3000 fix
- here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q113bbwR5A
Disclaimer: no, Rich isn't paying me to do this, assuming it even
deserved payment in the first place. I'm just doing what I can to
help nudge this thing out the door as soon as possible.
Jayson Smith
Okay, is there a page where I can find out all the features of this card?
I'm blind, so unless there is good narration, a video wouldn't do me much
good.
Thanks.
"schmidtd" <schm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:eb9b7577-6b4b-432d...@gv8g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
schmidtd
<ihatespamratguynospample...@insightbb.spamsucks.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Okay, is there a page where I can find out all the features of this card?
> I'm blind, so unless there is good narration, a video wouldn't do me much
> good.
Rich doesn't have the user's manual ready; once that's ready, that
would probably be the authoritative source. Until then, I tried to
put the basic functions into words in a posting in Rich's bulletin
board:
http://dreher.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=457&sid=f3637c0e61a54fc93ea5ce14fd9486e3
But even there, I had to resort to some pictures to help explain the
situation. There's a lot of virtual things going on - I've been
having a hard time putting it into words successfully. So give that
post a read, and ask questions to fill in what I missed. Maybe I can
learn to describe it better!
D Finnigan
> To commemorate Rich Dreher's arrival at KFest - I recorded an
> introductory video of the various features of the CFFA3000. You guys
> already know all the info in here, but in case you need a CFFA3000 fix
> - here it is:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q113bbwR5A
>
Cool stuff. I liked your ending quote, "For a computer approaching its 35th
birthday, this is as future-proof as it gets in this industry."
:-)
--
]DF$
Mac GUI Vault - A source for retro Apple II and
Macintosh computing.
http://macgui.com/vault/
Jayson Smith
Thanks for this. Being blind, there are a few things I'd need to know before
I buy one. In particular, how do you manage virtual disk drives and change
disk images? Is it a desk accessory or what? Are the menus/commands
predictable, or does it remember where you were last time, etc? I know of at
least one program I have which requires switching disks while it's running,
turning over the program disk.
Thanks.
Jayson
"schmidtd" <schm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:7ea86923-5363-4a93...@w24g2000yqw.googlegroups.com...
D Finnigan
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for this. Being blind, there are a few things I'd need to know
> before
> I buy one. In particular, how do you manage virtual disk drives and change
> disk images? Is it a desk accessory or what? Are the menus/commands
> predictable, or does it remember where you were last time, etc?
When you boot the Apple with the CFFA3000, it shows a menu on the screen. It
looks like when you use a USB stick, there is a bit of a wait. About 2
seconds on the video for the USB device to be ready. The menu has 8 options.
They are:
1.) Disk II Slot: 6 (Will reboot)
2.) Disk II Assignments
3.) SmartPort Devices: 6
4.) SmartPort Assignments
5.) Assign First From: CF
6.) Other Settings
7.) About
8.) Boot
Option 1 is used to toggle a slot for the virtual Disk II, presumably by
using the left and right arrow keys.
Option 3 is for choosing the number of "block devices" to be accessed via
ProDOS/SmartPort. (Note, DOS 3.3 cannot see these.)
Option 5 is for choosing which to boot from when USB and CompactFlash are
both inserted to the CFFA,.
When you choose the second option, Disk II assignments, you get taken to a
two-column screen that shows the .dsk images on your USB drive in a list on
the left, and then which of these images are selected for Disk II emulation,
shown on the right.
This is all information that I got from watching the video. I'm sure others
will fill in the rest of the details. :-)
D Finnigan
> Are the menus/commands
> predictable, or does it remember where you were last time, etc?
About the menus:
From watching the video, it appears that the selection cursor starts at the
top of the option list every time that you return to the main menu. Using
the up and down arrow keys moves the menu selection cursor. It's not clear
if you can also type the menu option number.
D Finnigan
> Are the menus/commands
> predictable, or does it remember where you were last time, etc?
About the menus:
schmidtd
> Jayson Smith wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> > Thanks for this. Being blind, there are a few things I'd need to know
> > before
> > I buy one. In particular, how do you manage virtual disk drives and change
> > disk images? Is it a desk accessory or what? Are the menus/commands
> > predictable, or does it remember where you were last time, etc?
>
> When you boot the Apple with the CFFA3000, it shows a menu on the screen. It
> looks like when you use a USB stick, there is a bit of a wait. About 2
> seconds on the video for the USB device to be ready.
There are also beeps when devices (CF, USB) become ready. And a buzz
when something is unsuccessful. If you listen carefully, you will
observe a bug in the then-current firmware... it was buzzing at my USB
stick, which works perfectly well.
> The menu has 8 options.
> They are:
>
> 1.) Disk II Slot: 6 (Will reboot)
> 2.) Disk II Assignments
> 3.) SmartPort Devices: 6
> 4.) SmartPort Assignments
> 5.) Assign First From: CF
> 6.) Other Settings
> 7.) About
> 8.) Boot
Note that each menu item can be accessed by number, or by the first
letter in the name.
> Option 1 is used to toggle a slot for the virtual Disk II, presumably by
> using the left and right arrow keys.
That's correct; and you only have to reboot when changing the slot
number. Normally, it doesn't say (Will reboot).
> Option 5 is for choosing which to boot from when USB and CompactFlash are
> both inserted to the CFFA,.
Actually, option 5 really means which memory device will fill in all
of its images into the available volumes first. So, if you have 2
images identified from CF, and 3 from USB, and you set "Assign first
from:" to be CF, then CF images 1 and 2 get assigned to the first
available volumes; then USB gets its 3 images assigned to the next
ones, all according to the ProDOS assignment rules (Antoine posted a
link to the relevant algorithm recently...)
> When you choose the second option, Disk II assignments, you get taken to a
> two-column screen that shows the .dsk images on your USB drive in a list on
> the left, and then which of these images are selected for Disk II emulation,
> shown on the right.
When you select an image from the left, you get a "gleep" sound as it
successfully mounts and shows up on the right.
Jayson Smith
Wow, good description! Now, a few more questions. Is there any way to swap
out disk images while a program is running, in other words, without
rebooting? As in, when a program needs the disk to be flipped over to access
files on the other side. Also, is there by chance a way to access the device
settings E.G. disk assignments, etc. through a program after the system is
booted? Obviously before any disk has booted, *nothing* will talk. I gather
you can't select the virtual disk drive and actually type in the name of the
disk image to mount there? That would be very nice for us blind folks,
rather than or in addition to a menu where you might not know how many
arrows to hit to get to the particular image.
A totally off-the-wall suggestion here, but I don't assume the boot menu is
located on a 'fake' disk image with DOS 3.3 or ProDOS as its OS? If it were,
at least partial accessibility might be possible by having that image load
Textalker. Problem, of course, is how to detect if someone has an Echo
speech synthesizer card, and I don't know any answers to that one.
Jayson
"schmidtd" <schm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:4049a068-7d76-431c...@x10g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
David Schmidt
> Wow, good description! Now, a few more questions. Is there any way to swap
> out disk images while a program is running, in other words, without
> rebooting?
Rich is developing an outboard switch mechanism with two switches that
lets you rotate through a list of disk images for each drive. So each
time you press a button, the next disk in the series gets inserted.
Exactly how that works hasn't been decided or coded yet, but the
capability is engineered into the card and the switches are being produced.
In another life, I mess with Commodore equipment. There's a device in
that world (http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/SD2IEC) that lets you
concoct a text file that lists disk images by specifying the path on the
memory device to each. That way, the user doesn't have to interact with
menus at all - just create the file and copy it to the device. Pushing
a button selects the next image in your file. Now, things are much
simpler in that world because there is only one memory device (the SD
card) and only one logical drive is presented to the computer. I
believe a solution like this would be suitable in the CFFA3000 scenario
too, but it remains to be seen if it can be incorporated.
> Also, is there by chance a way to access the device
> settings E.G. disk assignments, etc. through a program after the system is
> booted?
It seems like any program that can interrogate ProDOS volumes could do
that. Such a program could display what volume names are associated
with what slots and drives. Do you have something that does that today?
> I gather
> you can't select the virtual disk drive and actually type in the name of the
> disk image to mount there? That would be very nice for us blind folks,
> rather than or in addition to a menu where you might not know how many
> arrows to hit to get to the particular image.
I agree, the menu system is very visual in nature. That's why the
file-based mounting seems like a good bridge. But again, I don't know
how or if that fits into Rich's plans.
> A totally off-the-wall suggestion here, but I don't assume the boot menu is
> located on a 'fake' disk image with DOS 3.3 or ProDOS as its OS? If it were,
> at least partial accessibility might be possible by having that image load
> Textalker.
I am working on a way to at least dump out the menu hierarchy in text
form. It wouldn't be live; it would just be the map of what text is on
the screen in a default configuration. As I had mentioned in Rich's
forum, I lobbied for and got a memory dump capability, which deposits
memory from $400 to $7ff into a file. I can post-process that file and
extract the text from it. It would be entirely too clumsy to do in real
time, but at least it enables us to take snapshots of things.
Jeff Shanholtz
> On 7/21/2011 1:39 PM, Jayson Smith wrote:
>
> > Wow, good description! Now, a few more questions. Is there any way to swap
> > out disk images while a program is running, in other words, without
> > rebooting?
>
> Rich is developing an outboard switch mechanism with two switches that
> lets you rotate through a list of disk images for each drive. So each
> time you press a button, the next disk in the series gets inserted.
> Exactly how that works hasn't been decided or coded yet, but the
> capability is engineered into the card and the switches are being produced.
I was wondering about the same thing. Being relatively inexperienced
with my apple (discounting my childhood experience), I'm not sure how
worthwhile this would be, but it seems like a remote/external unit
with a button and an LCD showing the current selection would come in
handy for situations like Jayson mentioned. It could also be really
useful if you mostly use like a half dozen unrelated disk images that
you can then cycle through as desired from session to session without
having to wade through the menus. Just a thought that popped into my
head. Of course, it may be a little late in the game to add something
like this anyway.