Hiya folks,
I am trying to decide between purchasing a CFFA3000 or a Floppy Emu. My configuration is a stock IIGS with a 3.5" Unidisk and 5.25" drive. Ideally, I'd like the computer to attempt to boot from the 3.5" Unidisk and then the 5.25" and then the Floppy Emu/CFFA3000 and retain the ability to read/write to either drive as necessary.
Is this even possible? I am rather confused by all the limitations on the daisy chaining and I don't want to make a mistake and purchase all the wrong stuff.
The reason I want to make sure I can access both drives is so that I can also have the ability to read and write disks.
Thanks for all your knowledge and support, everyone!
~
Is your 3.5" drive really a Unidrive? Those aren't necessarily the best choice for a IIgs. There was a specific model drive they sold for the IIgs. The Unidrive was intended for the //e with LiRon card if my memory serves.
If you are wanting to mix and match with physical drives the Floppy Emu may be a better choice. With the right cabling and adapters what you are wanting to do daisy chaining wise may be possible. Not sure about the boot order though.
Compatibility Chart
Apple Model
Adapter Requirement
External Drives
Apple IIe or earlier
Disk II or Apple 5.25" controller
Disk II, Disk IIc, Unidisk 5.25", Apple 5.25", DuoDisk 5.25"
Apple IIe or earlier
"Liron" controller
Unidisk 3.5"
Apple IIe or earlier
"Superdrive" controller
Unidisk 3.5", Apple 3.5", Apple FDHD
Apple IIe or earlier
Laser "Universal Disk Controller"
?? Unidisk 3.5", Apple 3.5"
Apple IIc
May require ROM update
Unidisk 3.5"
Apple IIc
None
Disk II (modified cable), Disk IIc, Unidisk 5.25", Apple 5.25", DuoDisk 5.25" (one drive only)
Apple IIc+
None
Apple 3.5", Unidisk 3.5", Apple 5.25", Unidisk 5.25", Disk II (modified cable)
Apple IIgs
None
Disk II (modified cable), Disk IIc, Unidisk 5.25", Apple 5.25", DuoDisk 5.25" (modified board)
Apple IIgs
None
Unidisk 3.5", Apple 3.5"
Apple IIgs
"Superdrive" controller
Apple FDHD
LC family Macintosh
LC IIe Workstation card
Unidisk 3.5", Apple 5.25"
Mac 128K, 512K
800K drive requires HD20 INIT for HFS support. HD20 INIT does not work with Mac 128 which can use drives only as MFS devices.
M0130, M0131, Apple 3.5"
Mac 512Ke, Plus, SE (not FDHD)
None
M0130, M0131, Apple 3.5"
Mac SE FDHD, SE/30, Classic, Classic II, Portable
None
M0131, Apple 3.5", Apple FDHD
Mac IIcx, IIci, IIsi
None
M0131, Apple 3.5", Apple FDHD
Mac SE, Mac II
PC drive card
Apple PC 5.25"
I don't know what the value of a CFFA3000 is, but I sure enjoy that my Floppy Emu works on both my Apple //c and my Mac SE/30 and emulates a hard drive on both (with different firmware installed, of course).
I have three 3.5" floppy drives, one 3.5" Unidisk and two 3.5" of the other kind which have the pin eject button on the eject button itself rather than under it as the Unidisk has. I am partial to the Unidisk drive because I think it looks nicer, and only recently learned that it was designed for older Apple II models!
I can certainly use one of the non-Unidisk drives, but I don't know what (if any) difference it makes? If any of you know, I would really love your insights on that.
My main concern is that if I use the Floppy Emu, then I may not be able to read/write data to my Unidisk or the 5.25" drive, or I'll have to unplug and re-plug them in constantly. Is there any way to avoid this so that everything can stay permanently plugged in?
Thanks again everyone so much for your helpful advice!
~
I have both and use the Floppy EMU on my IIc+, one CFFA3000 on an Apple IIe and one on a IIgs.
For most things I prefer the menu system and setup on the CFFA3000.
Easier to use in general. Harder to find. You might also consider the WDrive and the other options.
The reason the Unidisk is not recommended for IIgs is the fact it's slower. The Unidisk has a processor in it, so there is an extra layer in play when communicating with it. As where the regular 3.5 drive is "dumb" and the IIgs can control it directly.
I only briefly hooked my Unidisk up to my IIgs and could notice a difference in speed. I also recall the drive access light flickering constantly in cases where the regular 3.5 drive did not for some reason.
Memory being jogged, I believe you are correct. At one time a Unidrive was quite a bit more expensive than the regular IIgs drive too, and the UniDrive and the LiRon were highly sought after by //e folks. Many IIgs owners who had somehow ended up with UniDrives found it profitable to buy a regular drive and sell their UniDrive.
Also if I remember right the UniDrive case color doesn't match the IIgs that well.
Yeah, it was made to match the IIc. I happen to have mine stored under a regular 3.5. You can pretty clearly see the difference compared to the "platinum" color used for IIgs.
D8412D04-F961-4D00-BAB5-47E254F84265.jpeg
On a IIe or IIgs if boot speed is of interest, the CFFA is a lightning fast whether booting into DOS3.3, ProDOS or on the IIgs GSOS.
I like that the CFFA lets you choose the OS of your choice to boot from on Slot 5, Drive 1, and still assign Disk ]['s or whatever to Slot 6, Drive 1 and 2. And the CFFA is terrifically fast at reading from physical SDDD disks and writing them as .DSK images to its USB thumb drive.
Would it be possible to boot, say, ADT Pro from the CFFA3000 and write data to physical disks to my 3.5" or 5.25" drives?
Thanks again everyone for your incalculable expertise!
ADT pro can only transfer serial, Ethernet, or audio. Not to mention, it runs in client/server mode. Your pc acts as the server, and the Apple is the client.
More than likely you would have to mount the image you want to make a physical disk of in the cffa3k and then boot something like Copy II+. Then use that to copy the mounted floppy image onto a physical one. I've done similar with my Floppy Emu when I made my Nox Archaist disks. Keeping in mind, you generally can't copy WOZ images to disk, as they usually have copy protection schemes. But if 4am Passport can crack it, in theory that should work in place of using copy II+.
Yikes. I have much to learn, apparently.
Sounds like the CFFA3000 would provide the most flexibility to access my disk drives. For example, I am trying to see if it's possible to boot from the CFFA3000, or if not, choose to boot from either of the disk drives.
Is this possible without having to unplug either the CFFA3000 or the disk drives each time?