Overview of currently avail. Flash card adapters

ParanoidLittleMan · May 3, 2021

So, overview with main characteristics of currently available Flash card mass storage (aka hard disk) adapters for Atari ST family. Without getting into which is best and similar judging. Will try with chronological order.

Satandisk - supports only non HxC SD cards, what means max 4 GB - if you find at all such card. 2 GB is also not easy to find. 1 CD card slot. Transfer rate about 100 KB/sec. It uses ICD ACSI protocol, but capacity detection command is not supported (what does not mean that can not detect capacity of card accurately).

UltraSatan - works with HxC cards, I tested with 64 GB card last summer and worked. 2 SD card slots, RTC function. Speed around 900 KB/sec - depends from used SD card too. Hot swap is supported in firmware. ICD ACSI practically fully implemented.

Cosmos Ex - 1 SD card slot, characteristics very similar to UltraSatan. No wonder - same designer.

Gigafile - 1 SD card slot. As I know supports well ICD ACSI protocol. Someone pls. do/post speed test for ..

ACSI-CF - (by me and tori) - 1 CF card slot. Special protocol - mixture of IDE and DMA . Therefore needs special driver and autoboot extension in TOS. Transfer rate about 1.8 MB/sec . Only Sandisk cards - not because they paid me, because only them support 8-bit DMA mode.

ACSI2STM - despite name it is for SD cards. Can be built by user self partially. Unfortunately, I don't see clear info about supported protocol(s) on it's site.

Is it ICD ACSI only (since supports larger cards), or there is mode with multiple targets of max 1 GB size with single card ? What about SCSI capacity detection support ?

I really don't get why author did not contact me, despite there are screenshots of it working with my driver demo versions, games with it ... Some users just don't know what it really can. Transfer rate about 290 KB/sec .

ACSI2SD - similar problems as above - not clear about supported protocols, SW for setting desired mode . It links to my old mass storage for Atari ST page, what is good, but concrete and accurate specs are really necessary, so users can use it most efficient and with up to date SW, higher capacity cards.

Transfer rate speed test welcome ...

Diverse IDE adapters can work with CF cards - with own CF socket or via cheap, passive IDE-CF adapters. Big part of them is DIY type. What kits are available, I really don't know, are some with CF sockets ... And here must to note: problems with writing on CF cards are very spread. The reason is not good signal timing of ST(E) bus for newer IDE specs (where CF belongs). As most reliable brand appears the Sandisk - more compatible signal timing generally. Transfer rates can go up to 1400 KB/sec with CPU, 1.6 MB/sec using blitter. And because TOS FAT16 is low Endian, IDE is 16 bit, byte swap is needed with DOS compatible partitions. It can be done in SW or HW. Which is faster ? ?

And that would be all for now. I don't want to deal here with non Atari ST specific adapters - like SCSI2SD, IDE2SD and like.