How to read SFS format CF card in macOS

[Boing-ball]

As  posted in another thread I'm trying to install a driver for an Aiptek Hyperpen 6000 graphics tablet. Unfortunately, one problem doing this is that I can't read or write either of two CF cards on my MacBook and I can't currently copy the driver using a FAT32 CF card either.

The two CF cards I've got are in different formats. One is in SFS format and was installed by me in 2015 after buying it formatted from Amigakit. I know I used Linux to install Workbench 3.0 and lots of other software onto it, but now I can't remember what I did and I haven't got a computer running Linux at the moment. The other card is in the PFS3 format, but I bought it containing lots of software from a well known seller on eBay.

How can I set up my MacBook, which is now running macOS Ventura and may soon by running Sonoma, to read the SFS format CF card? So far, I've installed FS-UAE, then copied the SFS filing system file into the Workbench 3.0 Boot floppy disk L directory, but it still won't detect the CF card.

Unfortunately I don’t know with FS-UAE. In Win-UAE you can easily mount up a CF card with a Amiga RDB and boot up from it in the settings. I’ve done that a few times.

Worth having a look on the FS-UAE support page.

[Boing-ball]

Have a look at this and go to the 10:34 mark.

https://youtu.be/88jxTQo4uhs?si=DNEJWuOW-_3UGMWi

This shows the Pi imager software. Can you not use this tool with the MAC to take a raw image of the CF and then rename the .img to .hdf then use the .hdf on FS-UAE?

Not sure if this is any help as well?

https://youtu.be/5BvIUIBIvhI?si=mh6hDupyrWLQ-37y

[Boing-ball]

I haven’t seen your other thread. So don’t know the background.

At a guess, you are running a Amiga in Emulation on the Mac only?

As it is, I don’t own a Mac and on Occassion use Win-UAE and Amiga forever when the need arises. For using the Amiga I tend to only use the real hardware such as A1200 and A4000 setup’s.

The only other way I can think of is emulate windows then run Win-UAE to emulate the Amiga?

Anyways. Good luck 🤞🏻

[Boing-ball]

I'm running FS-UAE on a MacBook under macOS. I don't use Windows any more because of all the problems it causes, including running very sluggishly, as well as overwriting non Windows partitions if it finds any on the same hard drive.

My problem is now solved after I bought a new old PCMCIA CF card reader.

I still haven't been able to read my SFS or PFS cards on my MacBook, but I have been able to read a CF card in FAT32 format on my Amiga! This card appeared under Dopus, as well as on my Workbench screen with a floppy disk icon labelled AMIGA. I took some pics but my files are too large to attach here!

I spent lots of time copying not only the FormaldiHyd.lha driver for certain classic Aiptek, Wacom, etc graphics tablets designed for Windows 95 or 98, but also some other files from Aminet, such as the Amiga C Manual, some games, and Blitz BASIC. I haven't plugged in my Aiptek Hyperpen 6000 tablet since I installed the driver, but I plan to do that later today.

One problem I had was that although my FAT32 card was detected when booting up from the PFS format CF card I bought from an eBay seller, it wasn't detected when I booted up from the SFS format CF card which I installed all by myself. I know from this that the SFS card must need to have support for the PCMCIA slot or for FAT32 installed onto it. I hope that you or someone else on here can tell me how to get the SFS Workbench 3.0 card to read the FAT32 card.
 

I replied on the other thread.

The PCMCIA driver and FAT95 used to read the card is Not native to AmigaOS or workbench. Therefore you have to download and install the following to get it to work off Aminet:

For the Compactflash.device driver and the CF0 mount you need this
http://aminet.net/package/driver/media/CFD133

For the Amiga to read and write to FAT16 or FAT32 you need the FAT95 filesystem

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fat95

[Boing-ball]

With FS-UAE (like WinUAE) you can easily use a directory on the host OS as a drive for the emulated Amiga, so you can boot off emulated amiga from the disk image with SFS formatting and just copy over whatever you wish from the host OS (and vice versa).

Good shout Shelly 👍🏻