AmigaOS compactflash.device driver for CompactFlash cards in PCMCIA

Author: Torsten Jager (t.jager@gmx.de); v1.32 (18.11.2009) Patched by: Paul Carter (); 1.33 (1.1.2017)

Read and write your digital photos, mp3 files etc. directly from CompactFlash cards as used by many mobile devices.

The OS supplied "carddisk.device" appeared to be unable to understand CF cards. I already had bought that adapter card, so I decided to write a suitable alternative myself.

Finally I put this under LGPL :-)) Not plain GPL because an Amiga device driver is primarily used by the non-free OS to extend its functionality. Thus bundling the 2 should be possible. The preassembled binaries serve to make plain users life easier but you may rebuild them yourself now with AsmOne or something like that.

Added transfer mode autoconfiguration. Major API rework and optimizations for use in kickstart ROMs. Added more detailled error messages.

you will need a special adapter card labelled "CompactFlash to PCMCIA", to "PC Card" or to "ATA". It looks like a normal 5mm PCMCIA card with a smaller slot for CF cards at the front side.

There are two types of such adapters sold in good computer stores, for "CF Type 1" and "CF type 2" cards. The only two differences: "CF Type 2" adapters can also cope with thicker CF cards, like those expensive "MicroDrive" harddisks; and b) they cost more. Mine is a "CF Type 1" which I got for EUR 10 (but I also saw the same model for the double price...).

• Some testing results:

16Mbyte card (Hitachi): 1.0 Mb/s read, 600 kb/s write.
64Mbyte card (PQI): 1.4 Mb/s read, 1.0 Mb/s write.
128 Mbyte card (Samsung): 2.1 Mb/s read, 1.4 Mb/s write.
2Gbyte card (Sandisk): 2.1 Mb/s read, 1.7 Mb/s write.
4Gbyte card (Kingston): 2.2 Mb/s read, 1.9 Mb/s write.

• Good news everyone

I got positive testing reports from CompactFlash, IBM MicroDrive, Sony MemoryStick and - taadaa! - SmartMedia adapter :^)) It may be required to re-insert the adapter after plugging the memory card into it. Only for CompactFlash and MicroDrive, the plugging order is irrelevant.

Commodore back then introduced the Amiga PCMCIA port before (!) the official PCMCIA standard was released. As a consequence, it is not fully compatible. Your results may vary on your actual hardware combination, including memory card, adapter, Amiga model, its chipset revision, and accelerator board model. In any case, your adapter MUST support old 16bit PC-CARD mode. Models who are 32bit CARDBUS only won`t work.

In conjunction with aminet/disk/misc/fat95.lha v3.09+, cfd can now use CF card`s built-in erase function if available. Erase is performed by the card implicitely on writes, but some cards remember the erased state and do faster write cycles afterwards. See also the fat95/english/readme.too file on that purpose.

Besides the usual AmigaOS error codes, there are some additional ones:

  73        Miscellanous Error
  96        Invalid Command
  97        Invalid CHS Address (Head or Sector number wrong)
  111        Invalid LBA Address (too large)
  117, 118    Supply or generated voltage out of tolerance
  81        Uncorrectable checksum
  88        Corrected read error
  69, 112-116, 119, 126    Self test or diagnosis failed
  80, 84    Sector ID not found
  122        Spare sectors exhausted
  95        Data transfer error, command aborted
  76, 120, 123, 124, 127 Media format corrupt
  67        Write or erase failed
  98        Command needs more supply power than currently allowed
  103        Media is write protected

"CompactFlash" is (TM) by CompactFlash Association ;-)

• AMIGA 1200 or 600, OS 2.0+
• "CompactFlash to PCMCIA/ATA" adapter card, see adapter.jpg for an example
• fat95 file system (disk/misc/fat95.lha)

Copy cfd/devs/compactflash.device to DEVS:

Have fat95 installed on your system. Mount the drive by double-clicking cfd/devs/CF0.

If you run OS 3.5+:

Copy cfd/def_CF0.info sys:prefs/env-archive/sys
Copy cfd/def_CF0.info env:sys

If some trouble occurs, like cards not recognized by cfd, please:

• report exact hardware type.
• mount CF0: if not already done.
• insert that very card.
• wait at least 1 second (yes, honestly).
• take cfd/c/cfddebug and type into a shell

cfddebug ram:cfdlog

• send ro t.jager@gmx.de (Torsten Jager) the binary file just created (about 4 kbytes). I promise there are no passwords and such in it.

In case there is another PCMCIA driver (eg. a network card driver) blocking the card socket, try setting the CF0 mountlist entry "Flags" to

Flags = 1    /* enable "cfd first" hack */

Damaged or simply not quite officially standardized cards may sometimes cooperate using

Flags = 2    /* skip invalid PCMCIA signature */

• v1.01 02/2002 First experiments.
• v1.02 03/2002 Minimal exec command set to work with filesystems.
• v1.03 03/2002 Added auto-repeat for faulty CF cards.
• v1.04 03/2002 Removed numerous bugs. Added quiet shutdown if non-CF cards are inserted.
• v1.05 03/2002 Added TD64 and SCSI emulation support.
• v1.06 03/2002 Card interface moved to PCMCIA I/O address space.
• v1.07 04/2002 Added debug tool and disk icon.
• v1.08 04/2002 Changed interrupt handling. Made read access a bit faster.
• v1.09 05/2002 Added "cfd first" hack. Added SCSI 6 byte read/write commands.
• v1.10 05/2002 Added PCMCIA status change handling.
• v1.11 06/2002 Fixed SCSI "Inquiry" command emulation. Set card programming voltage to 5VDC.
• v1.12 06/2002 Added slowed down transfer mode. Added PCMCIA speed check tool.
• v1.13 06/2002 Removed slowdown again, didn't fix the problem. Added "double read" and "double write" workarounds. Added read/write check tool.
• v1.14 07/2002 Removed "double write" kludge again (was unnecessary). Added ready check befor command issueing.
• v1.15 08/2002 Added ATAPI support.
• v1.16 08/2002 Added transfer mode testing module. Set word access as default.
• v1.17 08/2002 Added transfer mode autosense. Disabled card´s address decoder.
• v1.18 09/2002 Added "forced card socket activation" hack.
• v1.19 10/2002 New option: accept cards without valid signature.
• v1.20 10/2002 Fixed ATAPI bug. Added spinup from standby mode.
• v1.21 04/2003 Fixed "multiple mode" bug. Added "write multiple" support. Added PCMCIA soft reset. Added CFA_ERASE support.
• v1.22 05/2003 Added alternative card socket resetting code.
• v1.23 06/2003 Added IDE interrupt enabling.
• v1.24 10/2003 Trying to add support for a certain CDROM adapter, who unfortunately turned out to be CARDBUS.
• v1.25 07/2004 Added interrupt watchdog, avoiding occasional "lock-ups".
• v1.27 02/2009 Added fast interrupt support for Kingston and similar cards.
• v1.28 04/2009 First attempt to make cfd ROMable.
• v1.29 11/2009 Added transfer mode autoconfiguration. New "dd" version including speed gauge and performance test.
• v1.30 11/2009 Major API rework and optimizations for use in kickstart ROMs.
• v1.31 11/2009 Fixed bug in "memory mapped" mode. Further optimizations.
• v1.32 11/2009 Added more detailled error messages. 04/2014 Removed "dd" as it is part of "fat95". Finally made this open source.
• v1.33 1/2017 Makes init routie more reliable. Cards that previously would, Not work might now start to work. Tested with a variety of SD cards in an SD to CF adapter and now all SD cards initialise properly and work reliably. Cheap storage now available for all Succesfully tested 32gb SD cards with fat95 v3.18. See ADAPTER2.JPG for the type of adapter used.

Have Fun!