The FLASH KIT is the solution to do without the original 8’’ drive !
There are three reasons :
It’s currently very difficult to find or to buy functional blank 8’’ floppy disks.
The floppy drives are often faulty or grimey, and it is more difficult to find a cleaning floppy or alignment floppy ! And what about a new functional diskdrive ?
The original floppy disks, which are often more than 30 years old, are very often unreadable because they are worn, damaged (by scratch, mildew) or corrupt (by magnetism).
The Fairlight C.M.I.’s FLASH KIT is the solution to these problems and new features are added !
Indeed, the flash kit allows you to do the following :
save your sounds on your computer (Mac or PC),
easily exchange your sounds and compositions via Internet,
access to hundreds of virtual disks with out having to carry large and heavy 8’’ disks,
not have reliability problems disks that do not work at a crucial moment.
The Flash Kit includes :
documentation (Full part of the one that you are reading now) in English and French,
a SD type flash Memory card where the disk images are stored (delivered with more than 256 disk image),
a Flash drive (The black metal structure with many electronics boards),
a fifty way cable,
a thirty-four way cable with converter attached,
a two way power cable.
How does the flash drive work ?
The Flash player behaves like a 8″ floppy drive ! When you start and depending on the setting of the switches CMI nothing will happen as long as you do not select a startup disk image !
You can choose between several modes of operation the drive 8″ remaining, which by default is configured as drive 0 (boot drive) and flash drive that comes configured drive 1 (data drive).
The Flash player is able to emulate two virtual drives! The A and B ! The hole in the front is to insert an SD card.
The use of the flash drive is very easy. As it is based on the HxC drive, it works like it ! There are also three LED : green, orange and red.
The left and right black buttons allow you to scroll through the choices. The validation button is to confirm your choice. In order to have the configuration mode, press and hold the validation button for many seconds. A specific menu will appear on the LCD display.
The display contrast can be adjusted using the knob to the right of the front panel.
You have also a sound beep when the flash drive change of virtual head and when you move in folder’s, file’s and when you confirm a choice.
Compatible flash cards are SDHC Card and up to 32GB capacity. They are being formatted in FAT32 format. Caution !! I do not recommend to use a Macintosh, because Mac OS/X creates hidden files that can affect the proper functioning of the Flash Player. Use a PC.
You can get more details on setting up the Flash kit by reading the documentation.
Documentation :
The last update of the installation documentation is in the file : FLASH-KIT UK R1a
Import WAVE files in a Fairlight CMII, II, IIx and III. With the flash card it is possible to transfer wave files between the Fairlight CMI and computers.
This small note is valid for Mac and PC. Click CMI Flash Kit tips and tricks to download the document.
But the best way to get an idea is to view some demonstrations on the following videos :
Some videos of Flash-kit customers:
Some pictures
Order Kit
You can order the kit by paypal or by bank transfer. I can also undertake to set up the Flash drive in your C.M.I., please contact me for more information. For half size floppy format for CMI III, thank you to specify that in the paypal message.
The total price of the Flash Kit is 500 euros, select the model and valid.
There is a maximum time of one month between order and delivery. The kits are manufactured on demand.
The price includes delivery to all countries (with 500 euros insurance, tracking number, proof of shipping, Retail Delivery against signature).
For more informations on the transport www.colissimo.fr