Changes
/* Mass-storage, RTC and network dilemma */
*Historical: The [[Dobbertin Harddisc|Dobbertin HD20]] with [[Dobbertin Smart Watch]] were sold during the commercial lifetime of the CPC. But this solution is clumsy to use with 4 partitions of 5MB each and no FAT filesystem.
*Historically-plausible: The [[Symbiface II]] IDE/PATA mass-storage or [[X-Mass]] with [[Nova]] NVRAM/RTC, as the IDE/PATA interface was created in 1986. But it's fake as the IDE interface was effectively introduced on the CPC with the [[CPC-IDE]] prototype in 2004, and the Symbiface II being available in 2006. Also, these devices don't offer any network support.
*Modern: [[Albireo]], [[ULIfAC]], [[Symbiface 3]] and [[M4 Board]] as they give the CPC a direct file view of the mass-storage instead of a sectors view. So the FAT filesystem does not need to be handled on the CPC itself. It's overall a simpler, more convenient, more future-proof approach. The Albireo and the ULIfAC don't have a NetAPI to access the Internet unlike the Symbiface 3 and the M4 Board. And the Symbiface 3 is going overboard with its embedded MP3 player.
The problem is that all these multiple solutions are incompatible and are fragmenting the CPC community. That means we have less compatible CPC software, and we get needless complexity and confusion for users and developers. Currently, the choice is as follows:
