[Poqetpc] Re: PoqetPad PCMCIA cards

["Gary Tippery" <gtippery@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Ok, I own the PoqetPC Plus as well as the PoqetPad (isn't this called
> PoqetPad Plus too?).  The Poqet Plus by default will recognise SRAM
> cards, which are small, expensive and hard to get.  By loading three
> drivers in order:
>
> PQSS.EXE    ! PCMCIA Socket Services
> PQCCU.EXE   ! PCMCIA PP+/PC+ Card Configuration Utility
> PQCARD.EXE  ! PP+/PC+ PCMCIA Card Driver V1.18
>
> as described on
> http://www.olagrande.net/~webguy/service/poqet.html#Useful the poqetpc
> will be able to read many (not all, unfortunately) pcmcia and even
> compact flash cards (using an adaptor, obviously).

On the PoqetPad I got from the previously mentioned eBay seller, these are
automatically loaded from the D: drive by the included CONFIG.SYS.
...
>
>     I have some newer CompacFlash cards in a PCMCIA holder card. I also
have
> some 512MB Type III hard drive cards and some newer microdrives in PCMCIA
> adapters. None seem to work.
...

I tried several CF cards in a SanDisk adapter, no luck.

>
>     The PoqetPad has several utilitites for the cards. One is PQFormat,
> which can not find any of my cards. Format is a DOS utility that does not
> see the PCMCIA cards.
>     At any rate, the system knows the card it there, but it will not read
it
> and it will not format it.

That was my experience.

> I tired putting a small CF card in that had been
> formatted to Dos5. I then added the PQ(utilities) from the web that seem
to
> match size and date with the utilities on my PQPd and copied the autoexec
> and config files as well.  NADA.
>

Well, if it can't see the card it can't very well read the utilities off of
the card even if
they /would/ let it read the card, once loaded...
...
>
>     I was reading, in my crawl around the Poqet web, that both units had
> PCMCIA slots, but that the implementation might be a little off in the Pad
> as the slots had not quite been standardized when they were built.
>
>     From a practical standpoint PoqetPad's only make sense if you can edit
> and develop applications on a more accessable desktop.  My guess is that
any
> application in use on a PoqetPad would have to be a check box type app.

That's my conclusion, except I haven't been able to get a user-written app
to
 "see" the touchscreen as a mouse.  Wish I had some of the docs they /must/
have
provided to those writing custom software for the Poqets.

>     But, the two new ones I bought on e-bay, at a way cheap price, are
just
> too cute to let lay around. ...

Yeah, "way cheap", except you need at least a DC adapter/charger at $40-50,
and some sort of FLASH or SRAM card to load the programs, unless you have
the "other end" of the PQConnect program that's on the Poqet.  (Does
anyone?)

And they only have 640KB RAM, as far as I can tell, instead of the standard
2MB, so you'll probably also want one of those "rare, expensive" SRAM cards.
I've put about $100 into this one and it's barely useable at this point --
only runs small, text-only apps that aren't full-screen, so that the virtual
keyboard is useable.  Almost anything with graphics is out, 'cause you can't
type anything with the graphics up and the touchscreen isn't recognized as a
mouse.

Also, the touchscreen won't stay in calibration, so every few hours you have
to completely reset the computer to recal the screen, which loses all the
customizations you've done.  I /think/ I will be able to rewrite the
AUTOEXEC to do some of the re-customizing.

...
> >> I don't know about the PoqetPad, but the Poqet PC won't see anything
> >> larger than 2Mb (4Mb for the PoqetPlus), and it won't see a CF card
> >> at all.

Well, the /good/ news is that after trying all the CF, SRAM, and Linear
Flash cards (which I'd read were needed) I could lay my hands on, none of
which worked, I more-or-less accidentally discovered that the "SanDisk 175MB
FLASHDISK PCMCIA PC CARD ATA" which I'd just purchased on eBay for a
different device seems to work fine.  On the back is "NCR Part #
"P006-8601905/19 767877D", as nearly as I can tell -- it's pretty blurry.
It's also barcoded, but I've no way to read that.  There's also "SDP5(or
S?)BX-175-364", but I don't know what that is -- maybe a SanDisk stock # or
something like that.  This was the only one the seller had, and I don't know
where there are any more.

I've got another kind of SRAM card on order to try.  Will report what I find
out.

Meanwhile, if anybody has any of the development info or (presumably, PC)
software, I'm very interested in hearing about it.  Particularly, how to use
the touchscreen within a custom program, and what blocks of the internal
FLASH are used for what.
More information about the sorta-PCMCIA interface and drivers would be good,
too.

Has anybody on the list successfully built a custom serial or keyboard
interface?

Does anybody need  a couple of IBM 2MB Linear Flash cards, perhaps for a
Newton?  Or know how to use them on a Poqet or laptop?


_______________________________________________
Poqetpc mailing list
Poqetpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://kogs.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/mailman/listinfo/poqetpc