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Evinyatar · Apr 24, 2003, 04:57 AM

Has anyone tried to do this in an IDE Mac? I'd be pretty cool to construct a 100% silent Mac using this and an old PowerBook (fanless, silent power supply)

GORDYmac · Apr 24, 2003, 10:17 AM

Nope, but interesting. Especially since CF media is now around 2GB.

icruise · Apr 25, 2003, 03:49 PM

You could just use one of those compact-flash to firewire keychains. They are supposed to be bootable. But I'm not sure if it would be a great idea -- compact flash is pretty slow and it has a limited number of writes before it dies.

Evinyatar · Apr 26, 2003, 04:34 AM

Using FireWire would only work on FireWire equipped Macs though. And it wouldn't be a mod either

CompactFlash should be fast enough to boot from, and they're not *that* limited in the amount of times you can write to them. Remember that the first Macs booted of floppy disks, which you can write to like 30 times and they're for the trash. Compact Flash does much better than that.

firefly · Apr 26, 2003, 12:30 PM

Might try this just for fun with a 5300c... since I have a 256MB CF card and PCMCIA adaptor.

bradoesch · Apr 26, 2003, 03:11 PM

Originally posted by Evinyatar:
Remember that the first Macs booted of floppy disks, which you can write to like 30 times and they're for the trash.

30 times? I was a wee lad when the first Macs came out, but didn't they use smaller capacity 3.5" floppy disks? Surely you could write to them more than 30 times. Am I way off here?

x user · Apr 26, 2003, 06:02 PM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
30 times? I was a wee lad when the first Macs came out, but didn't they use smaller capacity 3.5" floppy disks? Surely you could write to them more than 30 times. Am I way off here?

Yeah, you could read from them quite a few times, but writing on them, they went pretty fast.

RoofusPennymore · Apr 26, 2003, 09:23 PM

Yes, I've done it with a IDE->CF adapter and it works pretty good. I only had a 256 card so I could only use OS9.

Not as fast as you might think though.

COmie JOe · Apr 30, 2003, 01:18 AM

Originally posted by RoofusPennymore:
Yes, I've done it with a IDE->CF adapter and it works pretty good. I only had a 256 card so I could only use OS9.

Not as fast as you might think though.

Where might one get such a thing?

RoofusPennymore · Apr 30, 2003, 06:55 AM

I like the one from ACS Controls, Look for the link on the left for IDE Adapter under Compact Flash.

Tastannin · May 5, 2003, 09:01 AM

Yeah, there's a limit on how many times flash memory can be written to. It's finite - not exactly sure how long they last, but you'd approach the limit faster if you used a CF card as a IDE device. However, you'd be ok with a IBM microdrive - basically a CF-sized hard drive. Kinda defeats the purpose, heh.

bradoesch · May 5, 2003, 11:21 AM

Originally posted by x user:
Yeah, you could read from them quite a few times, but writing on them, they went pretty fast.

Does this apply to floppy disks these days also?

x user · May 5, 2003, 06:34 PM

Yeah, but zip disks are better. I wouldn't trust a floppy as far as I could throw it. The reason the CF card isn't that fast is because the IDE bus restricts it. If only there was a Fireware to CF adaptor

.

COmie JOe · May 6, 2003, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by x user:
Yeah, but zip disks are better. I wouldn't trust a floppy as far as I could throw it. The reason the CF card isn't that fast is because the IDE bus restricts it. If only there was a Fireware to CF adaptor .

ZIP disk *shiver* I think they had more issues with the good old "click of death" than a floppy.

x user · May 6, 2003, 08:09 PM

Originally posted by COmie JOe:
ZIP disk *shiver* I think they had more issues with the good old "click of death" than a floppy.

Yeah, but they had a lifetime warrenty

iamnid · May 6, 2003, 11:25 PM

Originally posted by COmie JOe:
ZIP disk *shiver* I think they had more issues with the good old "click of death" than a floppy.

I work in a computer lab and I see regular floppies crap out every day... I have NEVER seen a zip disk give up... in fact I bought a 10 pack about a year and a half ago and I'm still using the first one... never even got to the others... I habitually fill it to capacity, unload it, fill it again, unload it etc... probably done it a couple of hundred times... no problems... try doing that with a floppy.