After a short sojourn into the world of the C64, I was again gripped by the Amiga Fever this summer.
I had known for a while that my CF card performance on the IDE side was poor, and had not been able to remedy this. I therefore decided to look out for an IDE-Fix Express. These are however in high demand and not regularly available, and the fever would not allow me to wait forever. I therefore took advice and went down the route of getting an SCSI kit to go with my blizzard 1260. After a while, I managed this, and although it slightly traumatically (see here) meant removing the fan from the back of the card, which in turn led to me fitting one to the modified trapdoor cover, its now in place.
Adding an SCSI – IDE bridge to this, to allow me to use the CF hard drive option is up next, but this has also proved challenging, as those that are available seem very expensive when bought from new, so I have a thread running here to see about getting one. I did see this thing called an Aztec Monster, and am still awaiting reports as to what speeds can actually be achieved with it. (see here).
Anyway, as is always the case, shortly after getting the SCSI kit, and IDE-Fix Express became available, and after a good 10 minutes thought, I bought it.
Fitting it brought me some speed increase but not as much as I had hoped, although this was eventually partly resolved here. I understand my Blizzard 1260 will cause some bottleneck with the IDE port though, and hinder what speeds can be achieved. (source)
Now I had previously been using a kipper2k external CF adapter, and I really wanted to continue to have external access to the CF cards. As the K2K adapter doesn’t fit with the IDE-Fix express, I ordered another simple CF card adapter to try and fit above the PCMCIA slot to achieve the same end. Now what is it they say about haste and speed? When it arrived, I saw to my dismay that I had actually ordered one which had a slave CF card slot underneath it as well. This put paid to my idea of fitting it above the PCMCIA slot, so I ordered a second one, paying a bit more attention this time….
icard
But in the mean time, a thought occurred to me. By cutting a channel in the bottom CF card slot, I could use this to affix the adapter to the back of the case. So I did that. The card adapter protrudes visibly which some may not like, but I prefer as it makes access much easier.
I then attached the next CF adapter when it arrived, to the secondary channel on the IDE-Fix Express, but could not make it work. I don’t know why as FitzSteve has got his working using some of my patched files! I suspect it may be that first CF adapter. In the end, I decided not to worry, as I found that I could use both CF slots on the first adapter successfully on the IDE-Fix Express primary channel. I now have both cards showing up and can move files between them with no problem! Just needed a bit of case tinkering to stop it blocking the 2nd CF slot. (Finding a way to make the 2nd adapter work as well seemed like unnecessary overkill at this point, especially as I may still end up with that third CF card slot via the SCSI route!)
Now I know you all want pics etc and they will come, but as you will see in the next few posts, I am putting stuff together and also need to tidy up a few cuts to the case first. Still lots to do before I am finished for this year.......
I had known for a while that my CF card performance on the IDE side was poor, and had not been able to remedy this. I therefore decided to look out for an IDE-Fix Express. These are however in high demand and not regularly available, and the fever would not allow me to wait forever. I therefore took advice and went down the route of getting an SCSI kit to go with my blizzard 1260. After a while, I managed this, and although it slightly traumatically (see here) meant removing the fan from the back of the card, which in turn led to me fitting one to the modified trapdoor cover, its now in place.
Adding an SCSI – IDE bridge to this, to allow me to use the CF hard drive option is up next, but this has also proved challenging, as those that are available seem very expensive when bought from new, so I have a thread running here to see about getting one. I did see this thing called an Aztec Monster, and am still awaiting reports as to what speeds can actually be achieved with it. (see here).
Anyway, as is always the case, shortly after getting the SCSI kit, and IDE-Fix Express became available, and after a good 10 minutes thought, I bought it.
Fitting it brought me some speed increase but not as much as I had hoped, although this was eventually partly resolved here. I understand my Blizzard 1260 will cause some bottleneck with the IDE port though, and hinder what speeds can be achieved. (source)
Now I had previously been using a kipper2k external CF adapter, and I really wanted to continue to have external access to the CF cards. As the K2K adapter doesn’t fit with the IDE-Fix express, I ordered another simple CF card adapter to try and fit above the PCMCIA slot to achieve the same end. Now what is it they say about haste and speed? When it arrived, I saw to my dismay that I had actually ordered one which had a slave CF card slot underneath it as well. This put paid to my idea of fitting it above the PCMCIA slot, so I ordered a second one, paying a bit more attention this time….
icardBut in the mean time, a thought occurred to me. By cutting a channel in the bottom CF card slot, I could use this to affix the adapter to the back of the case. So I did that. The card adapter protrudes visibly which some may not like, but I prefer as it makes access much easier.
I then attached the next CF adapter when it arrived, to the secondary channel on the IDE-Fix Express, but could not make it work. I don’t know why as FitzSteve has got his working using some of my patched files! I suspect it may be that first CF adapter. In the end, I decided not to worry, as I found that I could use both CF slots on the first adapter successfully on the IDE-Fix Express primary channel. I now have both cards showing up and can move files between them with no problem! Just needed a bit of case tinkering to stop it blocking the 2nd CF slot. (Finding a way to make the 2nd adapter work as well seemed like unnecessary overkill at this point, especially as I may still end up with that third CF card slot via the SCSI route!)
Now I know you all want pics etc and they will come, but as you will see in the next few posts, I am putting stuff together and also need to tidy up a few cuts to the case first. Still lots to do before I am finished for this year.......
