[NTLK] CompactFlash and Adapter

[R A Parker]

Size may not be the problem here. Many others, including myself, have used upwards of a GB or more CompactFlash cards and SD cards. Even using odd combinations of CF/SD adapters.

As for the error, I can only tell you ATA Support (on my own Newton 120 v2.0) doesn't work when compared to my MP2100 or MP130 – Although I was able to see my partitions, problems occurred when I tried to mount and read any of the ATA stores. Immediately things slowed down, then crashed and rebooted. It's hard to tell where the problem lies. My guess is the difference in heap memory.

On my MP130, my ATA setup works as expected. No problems mounting. When listing all 20 icons on my 33OMB eBook partition, the operation felt considerably slow but then opening and reading a 624K eBook, everything felt pretty normal.

All indications are that Paul Guyot intended ATA Support to work with all v2.0 Newtons, including the MP120. You will have to go to the Wayback Machine for the old Kallisys support pages:

<https://web.archive.org/web/20080905171346/http://www.kallisys.com/newton/ata>

Here you will find a few FAQ's answered plus the beginnings of a compatibility database. Understand that these webpages are dated and do not include information about large capacity CF cards. 

Another reference is to search the NewtonTalk.net archive itself … start here:

<http://myapplenewton.blogspot.com/2009/04/ata-support-wonderful-story.html> 

Because it's such a "wonderful story."

Read all the way down to the comments for a link to a good NewtonTalk thread on ATA Support.

My best suggestion is to experiment with a good variety of memory cards and/or adapters in your Newton 120. Keep trying until you find a combination that works best and seems to be the most stable.

Test everything multiple times. Formatting. Partitioning. Moving multiple packages. Moving large packages (i.e. eBooks) to and from a partition. Open apps and eBooks from a partition.  Once you achieve stability, then you can feel comfortable that ATA Support is useful and more importantly … a dependable solution for long term storage.

Good luck and do report back to the list the results of any further experimentation. Ultimately you may have to resign to the fact that an MP120 may not be up to handling ATA Support.

Ron



On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 at 3:15 pm Brian Adams wrote:

> I just acquired a SanDisk 
> 128MB CompactFlash card, and
> a Compaq adapter 
.
.
> My MP120 (with ATA support)
> recognizes it as a 33MB card,
> and tries to partition it…
> But, it fails… due to Internal
> Error “ (#-1001021) ”…
.
.
> Is this something I can fix, or
> is this card just too large?
-- 
Sent using Mail V and a Wireless Newton 2100.
--
RAParker
   |\/|\ @ Newted.ORG
   |/-|/ @ Quadzilla.NET
   |\ |  @ TahoeSunsets.COM
--
My name is R A Parker. I own a Newton and a Mac.
--