Re: [NTLK] compact flash card with adaptor size

From: George Bingham (georgeb1962_at_gmail.com)
Date: Thu May 13 2004 - 14:10:53 PDT


On Thu, 13 May 2004 16:51:19 -0400, Thomas Isenbarger do you
> two recommend any particular card and adaptor (considering price,
> speed, reliability, and other performance issues)
>

Hi Tom,

    I am currently using a SanDisk 128 Mb CF card plus adaptor (same
maker). I am not very satisfied with it. I bought it because it was on
sale at my local Best Buy store and figured "what the heck". Looking
at the compatibility table on the ATA site, I have decided to order a
128 Mb CF card from Kingston. Got a cheap deal online for their card
for just over $20. According to the compatibility matrix, it's been
tested to be almost 3 times as fast as my SanDisk CF card.

    I don't want to scare you away from ATA cards, nor do I mean to
critisize the work Paul's been doing on the ATA driver, but I'm not
sure I trust it that much yet. I've been working with it for a while
now, and I still use a 32 Mb linear card that I've had for years for
my default store, so all notes, applications, extensions that I
consider important or necessary go to either internal storage or my
linear card. Stuff I put on my ATA card are Newton Books (I have them
backed up on my PC), MP3 data (originally on my PC), some games, and
the movies I use to show off the Newton.

    Especially when using the MP3 software, sometimes my Newton locks
up such that a reset will do nothing and I have to remove the battery
to reboot it. (It could be an ATA driver bug or maybe a bug in Mad Max
(the MP3 player), not sure, as I don't store any MP3s on my linear
card due to their large sizes, I can't really test it that way).

    Anyway, I would recommend trying to get a linear card in the short
term, especially as you're a new Newton user (right?). You may find it
frustrating if you end up having weird problems like I'm seeing. With
linear cards (as long as your card is not a "lemon"), any problems you
might run into won't be due to the storage medium.

    That's just my recommendation, which may change when I get my
Kingston card delivered (I really did just order it today).

George

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri May 14 2004 - 09:30:01 PDT