[ILUG] Floppy adaptor for Compact Flash

[Padraig Brady]

Sean Rima wrote:

> Originally to: All
> 
> I am wondering if anyone has used one of these Floppy drives adpators for 
> Compact Flashes with Linux. Basically, from my understanding the thing is put 
> into the floppy drive, the CF into it and it _so_ say can be read by the floppy 
> as a normal floppy drive.
> 
> I need something to get pictures from a HP 210 Digi camera which doesn't appear 
> to be supported by gPhoto and HP seem unwilling to send out how it is 
> communicated with.
> 
> Sean


USB CF readers are probably your best bet. Any reader that
supports the standard "USB storage" should work under Linux.

Note CompactFlash cards have ide logic inbuilt. I.E. they actually
present themselves as ATAPI hard drives. So the easiest way
to go is to use a PASSIVE adapter to the IDE controller or
PCMCIA interface. This should be a simpler/cheaper solution
than a floppy drive adapter which would have to do some ACTIVE
mapping of the interfaces, and also the FDC would probably
introduce a bottleneck in data transfer. For e.g. lexar and
sandisk to name a couple are comming out with faster cards.
Lexar are naming them as 2X, 4X ... 16X, X being the equivalent
CD speed (I.E. 150KB/s), so max speed is now 2.4MB/s.
Sandisk have an ultra line that does 2.8MB/s
http://www.d-store.com/d-store/Sandisk/sandiskcf.htm

CF <-> USB

anywhere (for around Eur45 or so)

CF <-> PCMCIA

anywhere (for around Eur20 or so)

CF <-> IDE


http://www.pcengines.com/cflash.htm
http://mesanet.com/diskcardinfo.html
http://www.projectplasma.com/cf2ide/
http://www.dansdata.com/cfide.htm
http://www.psism.com/pci_rear_reader.htm
http://www.tapr.org/tapr/html/Fcfa.html
http://www.adtron.com/pdsdda.htm
http://www.m-sys.com/
http://www.douglas.com/hardware/pcbs/pc104/6deidef104.html
http://www.advantech.com/products/product_list.asp?category_name=Solid%20State%20Disks
http://www.chase-at.com/cartportmain.htm
http://www.sti-oem.com

For completeness smartmedia does not have integrated IDE logic
but you can still get IDE adapters for around $100, and also
some USB readers support both CF and SM.

Padraig.