16MB CompactFlash cart *does* work!! (Hardware MSX Forum)MSX Resource Center MSXdev 2008 - MSX1 development bonanza!              
              
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Hardware - 16MB CompactFlash cart *does* work!!

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16MB CompactFlash cart *does* work!!

Grauw
msx professional
Posts: 1002
Posted: June 04 2003, 18:48   
Hey everyone!!

The short manual which comes with Sunrise's CF-IDE interface mentions that 8MB and 16MB CF carts are not supported well. If I may quote (translating from Dutch): "8MB and 16MB carts are not supported very well yet as master device. With some effort, they can be used as slave device." I think with 'some effort' they are referring to 1. formatting it on PC, or 2. manually initializing the partition on the cart. I heard someone mention 'formatting the cart as a regular floppy'.

Anyways, that sounded interesting to me, and today I stubled upon a 16 MB cart from SanDisk, so I thought 'what the heck' and just bought it. But now I'm trying it, I encounter none of the abovementioned problems! I could just format it the regular way with IDEFDISK (though I did that while it was in the slave slot, I don't think that matters), no problems using it whatsoever and free disk space etc shows up just fine. Also, when I put MSXDOS2.SYS and COMMAND2.COM on it and put it in the primary slot, it boots just fine, no problems there either.

Maybe it's because SanDisk is such an A brand... dunno... Anyways I'm glad it works fine. Now what I would be interested in is finding a place to get a lot of cheap 8MB carts, and use them to release a game on... no hassling with multiple disks, just plug in the small CF cart and bam, it works, silent and fast. That would be pretty cool .

~Grauw
sunrise
msx professional
Posts: 649
Posted: June 04 2003, 19:32   
It works fine as I understand well.
In the manual we were careful as simple as that and at that time we have examined one card of 8MB namely Kodak. And tested under fat12. Therefore -that remark was mine-
to format it with formatting as a floppy ( same as format without a partiontable).
It still varies from brand to brand , because as Latok had once a 128 MB cf card and operated only as a master. I have also one with the same size and same experience
To be short , it very depends on the brand.
Sandisk is always fine. But Cheap cards without a clear brand could cause trouble


Ivan

msx professional
Posts: 878
Posted: June 04 2003, 20:41   
Does anyone know if a 256Mb Kingston CF card will work OK with the Sunrise CF interface?
sunrise
msx professional
Posts: 649
Posted: June 04 2003, 21:43   
Sure Kingston is one of the brands with a name, so thus good.
Only in case of no name putted directly on card might give trouble
Other examples are Dane-elec, Kingston, Sandisk . Ibm 340/512/1MB type 2
are also good and even a little faster

 
 







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