Re: [NTLK] IBM microdrives, ATA support and MadMax

From: Edward Humes (ehumes_at_mac.com)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 09:49:42 PDT


On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 02:20 AM, Andy Collins wrote:

> Is there anyone out there using an IBM microdrive with Madmax? If so
> how
> does it perform?

I have used a 340 mb microdrive and found its performance about the
same as a cf card, perhaps a tad slower.

>
> I'm currently using CF cards but I'm finding the performance very
> poor. It
> takes ages to download a track to CF.

After searching for the best method I could find to download mp3s to
the newton, here's what works best for me:
I put the tracks from my CDs on a private web folder on my .mac account.
i then use fetch url function (after installing NHttpLib.pkg) and
download as many tracks as I can fit on a regular linear flash card.
Your download will got much, much faster, and you won't have to worry
so much about exceeding your internal store. (It helps to convert your
mp3s to a smaller size/quality/mono -- it'll skip less and sound just
as good on the Newton, which can't play back stereo, anyway.)
I put away the files to mad max on my linear flash card.
finally, I move each track to the CF card.

Each track takes a total of five minutes this way, no more than ten for
very long tracks. I just go about my work while the Newton moves those
big files around. There's no getting around the slowness -- big files
and Newtons are not a natural fit, and it's amazing Mad Max works as
well as it does.

Don't be surprised if your Newton freezes up from time to time when
scrolling through the list view of tunes on the CF card. When that
happens, you have to hit the reset button and hold it until the Newton
resets. No data will be lost. I don't know why this happens, but
perhaps some more learned Newton folks can answer that....

Regards,

Ed

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