A600 - write big files readable in a Windows laptop

[Photon]

It's for my A600 portable in the signature below.

On Datastorm I had a hell of a trouble just giving or getting a few measly files from the gfx artist (easily solved by floppy) and musician (borrow someone's computer, one that has WinUAE, insert multicard reader, let the drivers install, add the cf as harddrive in it, find where to copy it to the laptop-owners harddisk-directory so I can find it, blah blah blah).

I would like to keep all that in the Amiga, and since most laptops have 0 floppy drives, I guess I'm looking at a FAT (95?)-formatted SD card or USB stick. Or does someone have better ideas? Ethernet is out since many demoparties lack a network.

So. What do I need to make it happen? If I connect my SD-IDE adapter on the same bus as my CF harddisk, I get read errors (usual problem). Idefix, sure, but I have to use the third connector and run the software to mount it.

Do SD card readers for PCMCIA work on Amiga? Or ones that take USB-sticks! That would be perfect. Anything special I have to do to check that my PCMCIA works?

Or get a chipmem board with clockport and USB adapter? (Well, has someone made it work with a USB stick??)


Do I have to 'mount' the FAT95 volume to use it, and how do I set it up if so?

[Photon]

Ehm, as usual I kinda answer my own questions when I type in a frenzy... EasyADF seems the ticket.

Does it
1) Work to copy the files to/from the PC just by inserting the FAT-formatted card? Ie. no custom software installation?
2) Has someone made it work to install a SD to CF-adapter in the CF-socket?

[Photon]

Ordered two from Amigakit, answer to 1) is yes. I offered to test 2) and let them know

Anything to think about when buying the adapter? "CF type I or II" or suchlike.

[Allen1]

Hi there Photon,

you can get 5 in 1 or 17 in 1 CF adapters that your standard upto 1 GB SD card fits into, the adapter then fits into a CF to PCMCIA adapter and is used just like a CF card. You will need fat95 and cfd both free from Aminet on the Amiga, your card would be formatted as FAT (fat 16 or maybe 32) in windows, a smaller sized card may be required depending on the 5 in 1 or 17 in 1's capabilities. Ebay is your friend for those

or this type:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PCMCIA-PC-Memo...item1e5a5c1fa4

I cant see any of the CF versions but the 2 I have are :-

[fitzsteve]

I use the easyadf software it does what it says on the tin!

Have a look at this adapter that should do the trick

CF cards if you don't have some already are 10 a penny, look out for Sandisk they're known to be compatible.

Steve.

[Photon]

EasyADF is good cos I know those PCMCIA adapters will work

Allen1, is the 17 in 1 tested working for Amiga file transfer? I found some on ebay.


If unknown, here's my planned combo for testing:

MicroSD to SD,

MicroSD to USB,

Since MicroSD-to-CF was the only adapter I found that fit into type I pcmcia, link


Then all of it would fit into the PCMCIA card (well plus the tiny USB adapter) and the "destination platform" would only need USB or SD or MicroSD, no card reader needed.

[Jope]

Type II PCMCIA cards fit into the Amiga.

I tried something similar to this:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10891 (seems to be the same card as Allen1's ebay link)

that I bought from Clas Ohlson. My card worked fine with SD/MMC cards using compactflash.device, but it doesn't support SDHC. If you insist on using a MicroSD card, you need a MicroSD -> SD adapter, but those are quite readily available.

[Allen1]

Allen1, is the 17 in 1 tested working for Amiga file transfer? I found some on ebay.

Hi there Photon,

yes the 17 in 1 works fine with SD cards. I just plugged in a 1 GB card which is also used with my PC and windows based phone and it is recognised and I copied Alfred Chicken from the Amiga to it and read the other files on the card, I use fat95 and cfd as mentioned earlier.



The only problem with the 2 adapters I have is that they extend an extra 2 inches out of the already sticking out CF to PCMCIA adapter and then the SD card sticks out at the end of that. In use you would fit any mini/micro SD card into a full sized SD card adapter and plug that into the 17 in 1 unit, it works well and covers most card options.

[Photon]

Heh, I should have been more patient & waited for your answers. Amigakit let me cancel the order (thx!) and I ordered two of those 5-in-1 SD PCMCIA readers. That and my USB SD reader will do nicely.

Any trick to setting the fat95 and cfd thing up? Maybe it's in my ClassicWB already?

[amigakit.com]

If you dont want any hassle setting up and configuring drivers, why dont you just buy the latest EasyADF software disk to go with the readers?

EasyADF has been recently updated again- it now also allows you to backup your System partition, uncompress LHAs as well as ADFs, ADZ files

[Photon]

Amigakit: Yeah, I thought about that when I canceled the order, I could have got that instead. But a friend said it would be np for me setting that up, and I've gone over my budget on misc stuff lately, so I've decided that what I need to do now is SELL Amiga stuff

Will report back when I get the SD-PCMCIA reader and have everything working, and if the solution is a bit iffy I'll try EasyADF for sure.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by Allen1

I cant see any of the CF versions but the 2 I have are :-

These plug into your CF>PCMCIA Adapter not directly into your PCMCIA? Ive never seen these before

Think theres any chance of something like this working if pluged in the CF>PCMCIA with USB pen drives?

http://sewelldirect.com/usb-to-compactflash.asp

[Photon]

Boo Boo, was looking for something like that too. But if the HK guys don't have it that usually means it doesn't exist. A CF housing with a USB pen drive might work, if it's not a generic USB interface. That thing likely is, and comes with drivers which don't exist for Amiga. At least I've never seen a solution for PCMCIA, just clockport. If what's plugged in is a storage device, just over a different interface, there might be the chance that it would "work like a CF" and not like a USB connector.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

Think theres any chance of something like this working if pluged in the CF>PCMCIA with USB pen drives?

http://sewelldirect.com/usb-to-compactflash.asp

Looks like it should work as a USB flash drive to CF adapter.

But who would know for sure without being able to test it?

[Retro1234]

And then I saw the price

Still could be intresting -theres one on Ebay for £25.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by prowler

Looks like it should work as a USB flash drive to CF adapter.

But who would know for sure without being able to test it?

Nifty gadget right there, prowler!

Sadly, I'm pretty sure that it won't work, as it is a CFIO device (something akin to what SDIO is for newer PDAs).
It would need a CompactFlash I/O aware system and a CFIO-capable slot, to work.

Still, it'd be nice to try it. Who knows, it might work!

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by Photon

Heh, I should have been more patient & waited for your answers. Amigakit let me cancel the order (thx!) and I ordered two of those 5-in-1 SD PCMCIA readers. That and my USB SD reader will do nicely.

Any trick to setting the fat95 and cfd thing up? Maybe it's in my ClassicWB already?

Sorry I just noticed this, most of the information is covered in this previous thread:-

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...light=transfer

[Photon]

Well, it was easier (less cumbersome) than expected. I copied compactflash.device to devs:, ran the fat95/english/install#? thingy from Workbench, and added this to devs:mountlist

   SD0:    /* Our desired DOS name, plus a colon */
    Device = compactflash.device
    Unit = 0 
    Flags = 0
    BufMemType = 1
    MaxTransfer = 0x1fe00
    Mask = 0xfffffffe
    Filesystem = l:fat95
    StackSize = 4096
    GlobVec = -1
    Buffers = 22
    LowCyl = 0    /* "Auto search ON" */

    BlockSize = 512    /* fat95 does not need this here, */
    HighCyl = 1    /* but the Mount command likes to see them ;^) */
    BlocksPerTrack = 1
    Surfaces = 1

    DosType = 0x46415401    /* first usable partition. Works almost always. */
   #    /* The number sign concludes the section */

All by RTFM. Should work fine with "anything FAT-formatted shoved in the pcmcia" *

I use a manual "mount SD0:" but you might want to mount it automatically every boot.


I used it back and forth between my laptop and the A600, I tried it with both the PCMCIA adapter and a normal "35 in 1" multicard USB reader in the laptop. Hotswapping (both computers on and just move the SD card) back and forth with newly created files also worked.

I formatted the card in Windows with a quick format to FAT16.

Funny, the SD card "feels faster" than my CF-IDE harddisk even though SysInfo reports 530KB/s vs 850 or something for the CF.

If you want an icon you can copy the snippet to a file and make an icon for it with the correct tooltype (using the tool "mount"), and put it in

devs:DOSdrivers

But then you need to remove the first and last line and name the file "SD0" or whatever you want to call that 'drive bay'.

Scrumpt-diddly-umptuous!

[Photon]

Also, I'm now running on a Kingspec IDE SSD in my Thinkpad T40. Just a matter of Clonezilla'ing the hard Disk-Image to a USB drive and getting an >= size SSD disk and restoring the image.

Since it's IDE and 70MB/s read / 55 MB/s write (and Pentium M... ) I didn't quite get 'black... grey white Winuae'. Still, about a third of the previous 50 second or so boot.

Here's some screenshots of performance, someone asked me to test it in my stock A1200, but I didn't. But since performance in A1200 IDE depends mainly on the CPU, expect the same performance as in my CF card speed comparison thread for Sandisk Extreme III/IV. Or just slightly higher. (Haven't received my Idefix Express yet.)

Photoshop loads in under 3 seconds, and I'm very happy with my purchase so far Won't recommend or feedback quite yet, but if you want the ePay seller, it's this guy.

[Photon]

SSD is still tickin', so this Kingspec IDE SSD is recommended