On 1/11/2000 9:38 AM, Brian McEwen [mailto:bmcewen@cowboy.net] wrote:
>Drew Loker" <lokerd@hotmail.com> wrote: >I know what you mean. I just
>>ordered two, and have been really planning on using them. I could not
>>afford them if I had to go "New". I am curious if anybody knows if they
>>can also be used in any old laptop as a storage device, like a floppy?
>
>There are special software apps from Intel to let you format, and write
>data to them, using Win95 and perhaps unix/NT. I saw no Mac drivers, if
>you are looking to use them in a Mac laptop. We are talking about the
>recent cheap 6 meg Intel 5/5V cards, right?
One of those 6MB Intel 5v/5v linear cards, when put into my PowerBook G3
Series/250 running MacOS 8.6 is recognized as a memory card (it says so
in Get Info). The PCMCIA card icon appears on the desktop with a little
memory chip icon on top of it. They are NOT treated as disks drives by
the Mac.
Not sure if ATA flash would work in a Mac or not (I don't have any) but
most other cards (I have an MPEG decoder, a USB adapter, a Hayes modem
(not that I need it in a PBG3) and a Farallon Ethernet card (not that I
need it in a PBG3) that all do work fine.
Not sure how to use the Linear flash card as memory, if you even can;
perhaps I'd have to reboot (and I can't at the moment) with the card
inserted to see the extra memory appear because it doesn't show up in Get
Info after I insert the card.
So those cards are not terribly useful on Macs, I'd say. I'd rather they
be treated as disk drives instead of extending my RAM or something. 6MB
isn't a lot these days. Probably be slow too, since it's flash memory.
I tried an older (1994) 2MB Apple-labeled flash memory cards and while
it's seen by the Mac, it's not even treated as a memory card, just as
some sort of generic card.
I also just noticed something I hadn't before. The Intel 6MB cards do
not have write-protect switches like my two 2MB and one 4MB Apple flash
memory cards do. So I guess they can't be protected against erasure.
But hey, for $35, not a big deal most of the time -- I don't use that
switch much (I used it only once - when sharing a card with some books
and such between an MP 100 and an MP2K; without the write protect it'll
convert or try to conver the card for OS 2.0 and then it won't work in OS
1.3). But it could be an issue for some applications, I guess.
- Bill
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