Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

I've a m515 but have never added a SD or MM card for it - just never
got around to it.

Now I'm thinking of adding one, but I need to get information.

For instance - anyone doing reviews and comparison between various
products? Are there some that one should stay away from, or can
I just go looking for what ever is cheapest this week?

Does the m515 have a max limit on the size card it can use?

What software do I need to load the card? I'm using Solaris and
use the pilot-link utilities right now.

What kind of software does one need on the Pilot to be able to access
the files on the card?
--
<URL: http://wiki.tcl.tk/ > Whether it's Linux or blue cheese, I don't care.
Even if explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting
should be construed as representing my employer's opinions.
<URL: mailto:lvirden@gmail.com > <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/lvirden/ >

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On 20 Sep 2004 13:23:32 GMT, lvirden@gmail.com had this to say...


>
>
> I've a m515 but have never added a SD or MM card for it - just never
> got around to it.
>
> Now I'm thinking of adding one, but I need to get information.
>
> For instance - anyone doing reviews and comparison between various
> products? Are there some that one should stay away from, or can
> I just go looking for what ever is cheapest this week?

<http://www.geocities.com/romidar/mmcvssd.htm>
MultiMedia Card (MMC) vs. Secure Digital (SD)

Virtually all SD Cards are manufactured by one of three companies and
rebranded (add a label) by the seller.
Panasonic is the fastest, Toshiba is about 80% as fast and Sandisk is by
far the slowest. Data read times are pretty good to great, but write
times are documented as 30x slower, so a 5 minute backup session becomes
an hour chore. Sandisc uses a 'Double bit' architecture were two bits of
info are written to 1 bit of circuits. They are cheaper to produce and
sell for less then the others.
So using Panasonic for write intensive things and cheap Sandisk for read
intensive things is a good strategy

> Does the m515 have a max limit on the size card it can use?

The m515 had problems with Sandisk SD Cards in the beginning but PalmOne
released a patch to fix it. If heard the limit of 30Gigabits, not sure
but 1gig cards work fine.
<http://www.palmone.com/us/support/downloads/file_manager_update.html>

> What software do I need to load the card? I'm using Solaris and
> use the pilot-link utilities right now.

No sprekinzee LINUX.

> What kind of software does one need on the Pilot to be able to access
> the files on the card?

The OS on the m515 reads the card just fine.
<http://www.geocities.com/romidar/index.htm>
Any application moved to the /PALM/Launcher directory of the card can be
seen by the default Launcher.
Read only data files can be in the card and read, some from the Launcher
dir, some setup their own directory.
Any program that interfaces the OS (alarms, hacks etc) or interfaces the
Hotsync Manager need to remain in RAM.

*NEVER* pull the card out, push it in and it pops out. Just pulling it
out once will ruin the card mechanism.

--
Hope this helps.
Jim Anderson
( 8(|) To email me just pull my_finger

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Jim Anderson wrote:

> On 20 Sep 2004 13:23:32 GMT, lvirden@gmail.com had this to say...

>>What software do I need to load the card? I'm using Solaris and
>>use the pilot-link utilities right now.

> No sprekinzee LINUX.

Actually, Solaris and Linux are not the same thing. Solaris is a
commercial version of Unix developed pretty much entirely by employees
paid by Sun Microsystems. Linux is a free operating system developed
by volunteers from all over. Linux and Solaris can run a lot of the
same software, but it is in the same sense that you some models
of Ford and Chevy can use the same type of spark plugs, i.e. it's not
because they are the same thing, it's because they are designed to
the same standard.

- Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

lvirden@gmail.com wrote:
> I've a m515 but have never added a SD or MM card for it - just never
> got around to it.

> For instance - anyone doing reviews and comparison between various
> products? Are there some that one should stay away from, or can
> I just go looking for what ever is cheapest this week?

First thing is, MultiMediaCards are pretty close to obsolete, and SD Cards
are not really very expensive, so it's probably best to go with an SD Card,
since they come in larger sizes and are faster.

There have been some real differences between different SD Card products, but
the situation is complex enough that I can't really remember all the details.
You could go to groups.google.com and search the archives of this
newsgroup to get some more info on that. The short version is that some
SanDisk products have had problems, and maybe some others as well, but
cards *manufactured* by Panasonic have usually (almost always?) turned
out to be good; however, it's not necessarily trivial to determine who
manufactured a given card, since most of them are rebranded and sold
under another name.

> What software do I need to load the card? I'm using Solaris and
> use the pilot-link utilities right now.

I believe the ability to put a file directly onto the card is a
relatively new feature even in the desktop software, so it's unlikely
it would be supported in pilot-link. However, even in the official
Palm desktop software where it is supported, it's DOG SLOW. So you
would be better off just getting a USB card reader and transferring
files that way. If you are cheap like me, you can probably get a
USB 1.1 SD Card reader (and writer, I dunno why they call it "reader"
when it does both) for free after rebate. I've seen it at either
Office Depot or Office Max (can't remember which); I found it through
techbargains.com. So either check that or go spend $15 and just buy
one without bothering with the rebate. You probably do not really
NEED a USB 2.0 card reader, since SD Cards aren't that fast to begin
with, and most Palm data comes in pretty small files (not much
more than 10 MB for most stuff) anyway.

By the way, I believe if you are using Solaris 9 or newer, USB mass
storage devices are supported (or maybe even in Solaris 8?), so that
should be an option for you, since the card reader will just show
up as a mass storage device.

> What kind of software does one need on the Pilot to be able to access
> the files on the card?

On the one extreme, you don't need extra software. If all you plan
to do is install apps to the card, you just put them into the
PALM/Launcher subdir of the card's root, and the built-in launcher
(as well as third party launchers) can just see them. I find it
helpful, though, to have a file-manager program on there that lets
you browse files, copy between card and Palm's internal memory,
delete files, etc. I use FileZ, but there are several other choices.

- Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:31:43 GMT, Logan Shaw had this to say...


> Actually, Solaris and Linux are not the same thing.
>

Nit noted.

--
Hope this helps.
Jim Anderson
( 8(|) To email me just pull my_finger

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:42:45 GMT, Logan Shaw wrote:

> If you are cheap like me, you can probably get a
> USB 1.1 SD Card reader (and writer, I dunno why they call it "reader"
> when it does both) for free after rebate.

Possibly because they were marketed towards owners of digital
cameras, where copying to the computer was the main concern, and in
most cases images copied to the card would be unrecognized by the
cameras. Also, several early CF flash cards were marketed as
"Digitial Film", long before PDAs incorporated camera lenses.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:42:45 GMT, Logan Shaw wrote:

> lvirden@gmail.com wrote:

[snip]

>> What kind of software does one need on the Pilot to be able to access
>> the files on the card?
>
> On the one extreme, you don't need extra software. If all you plan
> to do is install apps to the card, you just put them into the
> PALM/Launcher subdir of the card's root, and the built-in launcher
> (as well as third party launchers) can just see them. I find it
> helpful, though, to have a file-manager program on there that lets
> you browse files, copy between card and Palm's internal memory,
> delete files, etc. I use FileZ, but there are several other choices.

Actually, yes and no. I have a few programs that simply WILL NOT run off of
the SD card. Attempting to do so causes system crashes requiring a soft
reset.

I also use PiDirectII on my m515. This application allows me to store
programs in any folder on the SD card and they show up in my application
launcher as if they were in RAM. Without it, you have to switch to the
"Card" category in the default application launcher to get to programs on
the card. PiDirect II includes a file manager.

However, most third party application launchers these days (like LauncherX)
will automatically list applications on the SD card, making PiDirect II
less necessary (the file manager is still a nice thing).

--
Derek

Not all pain is gain.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Derek wrote:
> Actually, yes and no. I have a few programs that simply WILL NOT run off of
> the SD card. Attempting to do so causes system crashes requiring a soft
> reset.
>
> I also use PiDirectII on my m515. This application allows me to store
> programs in any folder on the SD card and they show up in my application
> launcher as if they were in RAM.

Do the programs crash with or without PiDirectII? Have you tried both
ways?

- Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:06:40 GMT, Logan Shaw wrote:

> Derek wrote:
>> Actually, yes and no. I have a few programs that simply WILL NOT run off of
>> the SD card. Attempting to do so causes system crashes requiring a soft
>> reset.
>>
>> I also use PiDirectII on my m515. This application allows me to store
>> programs in any folder on the SD card and they show up in my application
>> launcher as if they were in RAM.
>
> Do the programs crash with or without PiDirectII? Have you tried both
> ways?

My experience is that if the program crashes when on the card, it doesn't
matter if you're using the built in launcher or PiDirectII.

As I said, the only real advantages to PiDirectII are that it's easier to
access programs and it has a file manager. Neither of those is necessary,
in reality.


--
Derek

It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to
others.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:42:45 GMT, Logan Shaw
<lshaw-usenet@austin.rr.com> was understood to have stated the
following:

>You probably do not really
>NEED a USB 2.0 card reader, since SD Cards aren't that fast to begin
>with, and most Palm data comes in pretty small files (not much
>more than 10 MB for most stuff) anyway.

My Lexar JumpDrive Trio is *much* faster than my SanDisc reader, which
is very noticeable on Panasonic high-speed cards.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

In article <MPG.1bb8c19c6b47d1f798983d@news.frontiernet.net>, Jim Anderson <fro2750@frontiernet.my_finger.net> writes:
> Virtually all SD Cards are manufactured by one of three companies and
> rebranded (add a label) by the seller.
> Panasonic is the fastest, Toshiba is about 80% as fast and Sandisk is by
> far the slowest. Data read times are pretty good to great, but write

So other tan by buying one of those three brands, how do you know who makes
what card? Is there a list anywhere of what is rebranded as what?

I can only add one datapoint: I have a SimpleTech card that I've used to back
up my alZheImERs71 so I'm not totally FUBARED when it regularly dies.
CardInfo identifes it as Panasonic.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD"
>>> To reply, remove the TRABoD! <<<
Kaplow Klips & Baffle: http://nira-rocketry.org/LeadingEdge/Phantom4000.pdf
www.encompasserve.org/~kaplow_r/ www.nira-rocketry.org www.nar.org

26-October, 2001: A day that will live in infamy
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