Because 5v Smartmedia cards are rare and I have a Roland MC505 that can use them, I am wondering if it is possible to create a hardware emulator using an Arduino.
Before anyone asks, it was cell phones going stratospheric in popularity, with T-flash (sdcard) storage that won the flash format war (excusing USB obviously). Everything else was left to rot.
SmartMedia was a pain in the ass because the 5v and 3.3v cards weren't immediately obvious. You could spend a lot of money on a card only to have it physically fit but not work in a device or reader.
With CompactFlash and MMC (and SD) if they physically fit they generally worked.
My first digital camera used Smartmedia. I had a 32MB card, if memory serves. I could pull pictures off via a serial interface, which was slow and required a proprietary app, or via a FlashPath[0] adapter. Sadly, FlashPath adapters require a driver and aren't actually emulating a floppy diskette. Putting the reader into a floppy diskette shell and using the disk interface to transfer data is still a pretty cool hack, though.
Putting the reader into a floppy diskette shell and using the disk interface to transfer data is still a pretty cool hack, though.
Sony made a Memory Stick adapter like this, too. I imagined that one day someone could back up their computer to a Memory Stick.
(Alas, still a dream, as the Transcend JetDrive Lites for MacBook Pros are as unreliable as they are slow. Never put data on a JetDrive Lite that you want to last more than a couple of days because you never know when it might just suddenly stop responding for no reason.)
My first MP3 player used it as well. I remember how much this memory card style felt like a 5¼ floppy disk, as opposed to most other formats at the time which were hard shell.
I really like SmartMedia cards. They aren't really practical anymore, but they look cool. The small sizes kinda allow it to be used as a kind of solid state floppy, where you really only store one thing on it
This makes me realize I haven't had to mess with a Memory Stick in many years. Ye gods, I'm glad the younguns never had to deal with Sony's obsession with proprietary tech. They made the loveliest hardware, hamstrung with single-source accessories that cost many times more than the standard version but were only just a little better, if at all.
Today you can more or less buy an SD card and stick it in something and have it work. I am glad we eventually won this war.
14 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 33.5 ms ] threadhttps://affon.narod.ru/CARDS/elec10ei.pdf
Because 5v Smartmedia cards are rare and I have a Roland MC505 that can use them, I am wondering if it is possible to create a hardware emulator using an Arduino.
Smart(sic)Media is just a NAND flash interface really.
Looking at the spec, it seems doable, but it is way out of my wheelhouse (assuming I even have a wheelhouse).
With CompactFlash and MMC (and SD) if they physically fit they generally worked.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlashPath
Sony made a Memory Stick adapter like this, too. I imagined that one day someone could back up their computer to a Memory Stick.
(Alas, still a dream, as the Transcend JetDrive Lites for MacBook Pros are as unreliable as they are slow. Never put data on a JetDrive Lite that you want to last more than a couple of days because you never know when it might just suddenly stop responding for no reason.)
Today you can more or less buy an SD card and stick it in something and have it work. I am glad we eventually won this war.