CF feedback (PC3x00)

[Chrismeister <chrisn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Sven!

Howdy - and great work with the webpages, mailing list and so on.  If I
recall correctly your name goes way back to the early nineties, eg
comp.sys.palmtop newsgroup PC3x00 discussions, with such other notables as
Paul Picot, Eric Lindsay, etc!  

Just thought I'd write to thankyou for your page of compact flash info - it
has given my PC3100 new life... I've been out of touch with the PC3x00
community for a while and when I got back onto the mailing list and saw
your pages recently it was the good news I was hoping for - access to the
rapidly plummeting prices that the post battery-backed-SRAM technology
PCMCIA media provides!  Anyway, I also wanted to do my bit to add to the
knowledgebase, although it is probably fairly redundant - in that I went
for one of the safest options on your list (Sandisk, 32M).  I couldn't get
the exact same model# (the last 3 digits differ) so here is what I have
(according to the packaging - the CF card itself doesn't seem to have a
model#).  Here goes:

- Ok, according to the code printed just above the barcode on the
packaging, I've got a "SDCFB-32-455". 

- It is a 32MB Compact Flash card

- on side of card itself there is a little white-print marking of
"AA0112MS" and "CHINA"

- I got it from the actual www.flashmemory.com.au offices, as per: 
http://www.flashmemory.com.au/contact.html
(I was going to mailorder but checked their physical address and found they
were just up the road from me!)  The card can be found at the following URL:
http://www.flashmemory.com.au/shop/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=9&cat=SanDisk+
CompactFlash+Type+I+Memory+Card

- I've used it in my Psion 5MX, as well as the Sharp.

- Works fine using the installed sundrv.zip files and looks to work ok with
DIPSDP1.SYS too (tried it briefly); however in both cases I still get
informed that I have an "Invalid PCMCIA card B:" at the start of every
reboot, and whenever I switch the machine back on (after it's battery-saver
auto-power-down).  Chkdsk does thankfully report it as 32M - what an
amazing sight on little ol weePC!

- Interesting observations... whacked it back in the Psion after using it
in the PC3100 (no reformat), and Psion still recognised it and the dos
files on it.  However it didn't seem able to LOAD the data (like text) from
it.  I then saved a Psion .txt file onto the CF, plugged it back into the
PC3100, and whilst the O/S recognised the new file, when I displayed it,
the last section of the text was corrupt.  So far chkdsk has a couple of
times found there to be some lost clusters and once repaired things seem
ok, though now a PC executable on the CF will no longer execute ("Error in
EXE file").  So I think I'll reformat and stop fooling around with it from
a multi-platform perspective and try to stick to using it in one machine
"at a time".

Do you get the "Invalid PCMCIA card B:" prompt on your PC3x00, btw?  

Anyway, that's all I can think of so cheers & goodluck :)

Chris (in Oz)