@Neko

I received the Addonics dual CF adapter. It doesn't fit the Efika. so i use it with an old laptop i have here.
Too bad.

There are ide converters as discussed in the efika book maybe that helps. As the efika has a non standard female ide connector you need a male to male connector inbetween. Only these are very hard to get hold of. I have a flash harddisk of 1gb that does not fit for the same reasons.

Doesn't fit, in what way? The master slot is too low with a card in it or something?

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Matt Sealey

The connector is far from non-standard, it's used on nearly every 44-pin IDE laptop on the planet. Hard disks and flash drives built to fit into such devices (and most SSDs and CompactFlash adapters) all expect a female connector to fit into the device.

The only part that is "non standard" about it is devices which expect to be fitted to highly embedded boards which usually come with a 44-pin male connector on the board (vertical orientation or with a custom fly cable). These won't fit, but they are the embedded exception and not the consumer electronics rule.

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Matt Sealey

Matt, i'll take some pics and post them here to show you tomorrow.

Be really carefully with how you are connecting this to another female connector!!

I have seen the exact mistake made by our mechanical team (remains nameless) who tried to extend the connection from a female connector on the PCB to a HD without getting the proper male ribbon cable connector. He used a long pin header and used a ribbon cable with two female connectors. He ended up flipping the connections of all the odd number pins and even number pins. The card fails. I took a look at it and almost died laughing knowing exactly what's happening. And of course our connector guy was smart enough to tell him what connector to use but didn't check the pins orientations.

Here are some preassembled cables from www.digikey.com
http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/T072/0127-0128.pdf

Look at top right hand table with figure 3, under 44 pin for 2mm pitch. (Prices in US dollars <-- steep)
If you need more than one, then you can probably try to order the connectors and 2mm pitch ribbon cables separately and make your own.

Do not use 3M's 2mm connector. They sent us 3 connectors as a sample and 2 broken when it arrived. The connector was that weak.

I just requisitioned an Addonics dual CF to IDE adapter
(listed here: http://www.directron.com/ad44mide2cf.html)
It fits just fine. First impulse on seeing this is to put it in upside down. While that seems like it would be correct, it doesn't fit. (and won't work anyway)

With the adapter properly inserted, both slots can be used without intersecting the MPC5200. I can also access hd:0 fine from OF, running the debian installer from it now.

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I <3 tiny computers.

@James

damn i turned mine upside down. i'll try it again.

I'll repeat this again, we will not endorse and probably not treat you very nice if you extend the Efika IDE port with a cable.

It's not supported, there is a trace length restriction because of the way the port is multiplexed with other devices.

This is just how the MPC5200B works. No bridging connector or cable is going to get you a reliable ATA operation even if you connect it up right, and it may even make PCI and other bus functions act strangely.

The connector is like that for a HARDWARE REASON, not because we decided to screw with you all and restrict your options.

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Matt Sealey

The I/O of the MPC5200B and other devices on this shared bus limits the I/O voltage to 3.3V.
Looks like buffered IDE signals (bus transceivers on a small add-on PCB at the IDE connector?) are needed for anything that don't fit on the EFIKA board. This would help to satisfy SI stub length and electrical spec.

Such hardware doesn't exist, and really, I don't think it is worth the time or engineering effort to even make it.

We had a project submission for a buffered IDE port on the Efika, from someone who had made Amiga buffered IDE ports before (wait, was this you?). I couldn't get a decent answer from bplan on whether it was even possible, and the rumble from that side of the company was that it would probably be more complex than it sounds.

So, just make do with it. I cannot imagine what you want to do with an Efika given it's specifications that would require so much hardware on an ATA bus.

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Matt Sealey

The device i am trying to fit in is this one: http://www.transcend.nl/products/ModDet ... 7&LangNo=0 it is the TS1GDOM44V. The converter i want to use the get it working is this one: http://www.cablesonline.com/44pinmalidc2.html recomended in the efika book. This way i hope te get a pc with no moving parts!

Are there manufactures that provide a flash disk like the transcend one that fits the efika connector?

For removeable storage i use a cf/sd card reader connected to usb this way i can easily change a sd card. Seeing the ide cf readers that is imposible.

PS Using the efika with an standard notebook harddisk works like a charm. :D

Using the gender changer with that device should work, however it's going to hang with nothing to rest
on or be screwed into, hardly ideal.

The Efika book should never ever have recommended (and I wish Geoffrey would remove the mention of it) any stuff like this, though. As comprehensive source of information, sometimes it goes a little far.

You could try a real 2.5" SSD - they come in hard disk form factors. A little more expensive, but certainly far more rugged.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/su ... dex.x?pg=1
http://www.psism.com/flashdrive.htm

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Matt Sealey

I guess Asus offers now something very close to what I had in mind for long time and discussed as the "Eclipsis reloaded".
http://event.asus.com/eeepc/

But they have one thing missing: the real fast OS. Asus uses Linux - quite attractive. But if on a comparable maschine MorphOS would run...

Don't know about the actual used processor model (it is some x86 made by intel), but given the low price tag it cannot be a too fast one. I guess the 5200 (or 5121e) would be not lag worlds behinfd (at least not if you compare comuting power/Watt).
An e603e core based maschine running MOS might show Asus how to fly!

The efika2 should be designed to be used in real mobil applications IMHO. That is a huge market. MOS with a good browser has a chance in the market.

Anyway, congrats to Asus for now. It seems like a clever and attractive design (though it has to prove the real life test).

Their price point at 200 USD and small footprint is exactly what I want.

Laptops are supposed to be small - not 15-17" desktops!