Changes

In autumn Autumn 2004 the CPC-IDE was developed by [[Dr.Zed]] with support by from [[Octoate]], [[Tolkin]] and [[TFM]]. It is was the first hardware solution ever that allowed connection of IDE-harddrives and CF-cards to the CPC with the maximum possible data transfer speed. Technically the CPC-IDE interface was based on the GIDE IDE interface by Tilmann Reh.

It was fully working, but still had in a prototype state, so only 10 pieces have been produced.

During the production of the CPC-IDE [[Prodatron]] joined the team and created IDE-support in [[SymbOS]] for [[Disc_format|FAT]]16 and FAT32 harddiscs until hard discs by Xmas 2004.

After getting it working successfully, [[Dr.Zed]] and [[Prodatron]] made plans for a second version, which includes a lot of more extensions. So the '''SYMBiFACE II''' is not only now merely an IDE interface anymore. It merges the CPC with current PC technology.

CPC SYMBiFACE II contains the optimal solution for connecting a CPC with an IDE harddischard disc. It provides the maximum - both for the performance and for the simpleness simplicity in accessing the harddischard disc.

*Supports IDE-Harddiscs hard discs with up to 128GB .*Bigger HDDs HDD or CD/DVD drives drive support possible with drivers .*Simultaneous operation of two harddiscs hard discs (master and slave):for a total of up to 256GB on your CPC! *Transfer speed of 162KByte/s: . That's as fast as copying memory inside the CPC with LDIR. In practice (loading FAT16/32 files) the speed is still about 130KB/s ([[SymbOS|SymbOS]]-FAT-driver).*External power supply required: no extra load for the CPC's internal PSU .*No timing problems: Interrupts don't need to be disabled during the data transfer with the harddischard disc. The harddisc hard disc can operate while you play sound or doing other things with your CPC (multitasking etc.). *Traffic activity display via a LED on the board.

*512KB RAM extension, which is fully compatible with the CPC [[6128|6128]] and the [[Dk'tronics|dk'tronics]] ram RAM extension *512KB rewriteable ROM. You can upload up to 32 ROMs, which are persistantpersistent. You can also use the ROM space as an additional RAM extension. ROMs can be switched on or off via switches or via software. *PS/2 mouse connector. This makes it possible to connect wireless and optical mouses mice to your CPC. *Realtime Real time clock, which is fully PC compatible and provides additional 128 byte persistant persistent RAM, which can be used to store config data.

== RomROM-Manager ==

[[Image:Sf2romman.gif|thumb|400px|SYMBiFACE II rom ROM manager]]

SYMBiFACE II includes a rom ROM manager software, which runs under [[SymbOS|SymbOS]]. This tool is needed for displaying, loading, saving and deleting of the 32 x 16K ROMs.

*See also "[[ROManager|ROManager]]", a comprehensive SYMBiFACE II ROM management tool for [[FutureOS|FutureOS]]. It allows you to load or save one or all ROMs, test a ROM, adapt the checksum, copy, paste and delete ROMs etc.