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Figure 6: CFFA3000 menu, "Other Settings" > "Raw CF Card Settings"
Note that these old-style partitions can represent only block devices, not Disk II images. The only
reason to use Compact Flash cards this way is for backwards compatibility with the original CFFA
card - it is much more flexible to use the new disk image support.
USB Memory
USB drives should be formatted with the FAT16 or FAT32 file system with a Master Boot Record.
Most come this way ready to use right out of the box. If you have any trouble with them, use your
operating system‘s native disk formatting capabilities to clean them off and start fresh.
Note:
older SanDisk drives with “U3 Smart Drive” technology should be reformatted and the U3
software, which appears on a read-only partition, removed. See this SanDisk support statement:
http://u3.sandisk.com/launchpadremoval.htm
Capabilities and Details
Block Devices
Block devices use the ProDOS or SmartPort firmware interfaces. The maximum number of devices
to be presented to the operating system is configurable via the menu. Devices without any disk
image file associated with them will be "offline" from the perspective of ProDOS.
Disk II Emulation
The Disk ][ emulation built into the CFFA3000 is compatible with DOS 3.3 and many other Apple II
operating systems. The emulation happens at the "nibble" level, even if the disk image is not stored
as nibbles. The emulation is good enough for many purposes, but it does not attempt to simulate the
real-time spinning of the floppy disk.