Comments on: Rumor: New Memory Sticks on the Way

Oh thank god! It says that it may not work with older Clies, but the NX is hardly old! I wonder what the NX has that the older Clies don't? Possibly something in OS 5?

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Isn't this big enough problem for Sony that the spokes person can be quoted on the record?

....but than again, maybe drama does sell, some sort of marketing ploy.

WIth Smartmedia, where the controller resides in the device instead of on the chip, this problem is somewhat understandable-hence the moniker of "StupidMedia".

However, with the more recent memory formats--MS & MMC/SD, this proves to be distressing--ESPECIALLY with Sony's closed, prporietary Memory Stick format. They really have no reasonable excuse to switch over to a new MS format (assuming the article above is true). I don't actually think the memory stick form factor is going away anytime soon, as I posed a few weeks here in another discussion, I have seen a slew of 32"+ Sony Wega TVs in the shops lately with a built in MS slot. Seeing as how a television is replaced, on average, every 7-10 years at minimum, I'd think Sony is counting on the format being around for a reasonably long time. What I'd like to know is if there has been some upgrade to the innards of recent(ish) Sony devices (in all categories) that permits them to access the faster/larger Memory Sticks.

My father's almost 3 year old Sony F55 2.0 mpixel digicam, I am almost certain, will be shut out from any higher capacities in the future ,despite what Sony has been promising us all this time.

I really wish the industry as a whole would experience a huge shakeout and leave only CF and SD (not MMC) behind to make things simpler. Since we continue to get more and more formats (XD, MS Duo) that offer NOTHING of benefit at the present time except for smaller sizes that are easily lost. Consumers are forced to pay more money for a less practical card with the dreadful 128 mb ceiling and dog-slow throughput speeds. SD has actually surprised me with its rapid ascent to higher capacities, but the cost is still relatlvely prohibitive compared to CF.

The fact also remains that Sony is really late in coming out with large capacities: SD/MMC is getting up to 1Gbyte, and CF is getting up to 3 Gbyte.

We don't need MemoryStick, and in my book, it remains a strong negative for any Sony device.

When the large capacity MemorySticks come out, you can bet that Sony will be charging a large premium over other offerings again.

OR...

The new memsticks will require a convertor which will cause the new mem sticks to stick out of the unit by about 1/2".

OR...

They won't be compatible at all and Sony will release a new NX series in 2 months which is exactly the same as the one we have now, but with a mem stick slot designed for the new mem cards.

Here is the quote I replied to:

"When 64Mbyte/128Mbyte was state of the art, MemoryStick was twice as expensive as other comparable flash formats."

Please note that SD was even more expensive than Memory Stick at this time, as well.

George

Programs don't execute in expansion memory, they get copied to system RAM just like they do on your home PC. Expansion RAM is simply a storage mechanism, just like your hard drive. It is not really possible to use it any other way.

However you look at it, DRAM requires more power. That's the implication of the "D" in "DRAM". To get lower power, one either uses SRAM or flash (or more exotic technologies).

I could easily see a super low-power Palm designed with only 1 MB of SRAM for the OS and apps (same as the TT uses), another 1 MB of SRAM "disk" cache plus 16 MB of fast-flash memory to emulate the old DRAM storage heap, and 1 GB of slow flash, on-board or in a slot.

Well, unless we want to end up with a bigger mess than Pocket PC, getting the Palm application developers to clean up their apps IS better.

Nope. There is only around 700 kB of free application usable memory on a Tungsten T . The OS uses another 300 kB, for a 1 MB dynamic heap total. This leaves 14+ MB available for database storage; but this isn't free memory, this is simulated flash-ROM (fast reads, slow OS-mediated writes). Since database records are all less than 64k, there's no reason why the database storage can't be cached (as some VFS "hacks" have shown).

Almost no one uses a RAMDisk on their PC anymore. Instead there's usually a disk cache and virtual memory management as part of the OS. All saved data is stored on disk.

Here's my opinion in a nut shell. The whole internal storage method needs to be rethought. Internal RAM requires a constant power feed, but cards do not. Handheld makers need to replace typical RAM storage with a card-like memory structure. This would work wonders for batterry life and would reduce rediculous problems like batteries running out even if you don't touch your Palm.

Pretty much all the flash cards out there use VFAT16 or a compatible predecessor for a filesystem. That does limit volumes to 2GB. There is no filesystem in system RAM, prc's and pdb's are loaded program code and program data respectively.

I'm sure that's not the answer you wanted. There's a 3 part article here that tries (arguably well) to decribe what various VFS program/data loaders and launchers do.

http://www.infosync.no/show.php?id=1768

An article that compares various flash cards of different sizes from the major manufacturers would be very, very useful. Is there even a good hi-speed SD reader out there to test something like that?

I tested it on a Sandisk 256, Sandisk 128, and Panasonic 16mb SD cards and Sony 16 and 128 mb Memory Sticks. All reads and writes were substantially faster than on my previous multi-card reader (Dazzle).

I haven't really had the time to really play with and test the unit yet but it's a very nice bundle--comes with a built in retractable USB cable, a USB 2.0 extension cable, and a soft carrying case. It's also much smaller than the Dazzle. Overall I'd say it's a good invetment for $60. The cards don't have to be inserted upside-down like with the other Dazzle readers I've used.

No, I want them to adopt CF and MMC and abandon MemoryStick altogether.

At least for the brick and mortars in my neck of the woods, MS is still more expensive $/MB than SD by a good margin. SD has almost gotten as cheap as CF here. There's still the issue of what can be had in the various formats though. In terms of Memory, CF goes all the way up to 3GB now (at $1.22/MB it's not even premium priced), SD goes to 512MB currently, and the fully compatible Reduced Size-MMC gives you something more compatible and smaller than DUO.

The non-memory landscape for both SD and MS is still too bleak to embrace it on it's own. Hence half the reason for dual slots on many PPC's and the HandEra 330. You can get pretty much whatever you need in CF form. And they're common enough that you can by them in your choice of brands in your local stores, and at dirt cheap prices. CF WiFi cards for example. A plethora of brands, and cheap prices. Most of which can be used in any PocketPC, and a good number of which can be used in a HE330. How many usable in a Clie? One, Sony's. That's the Sony way...

Heck even if you need to read MS or SD in a CF slot, Pretec has that CF card with slots for both SD and MS.

Why would any one, if they had the choice, want to be forced to keep paying the early adopter tax for a few bleeding edge SD and MS I/O devices.

And I personally prefer I/O devices in CF form rather than SD/MS. The latter are so small that you end up with a larger external boxy card extrension sticking out of the PDA. CF is large enough and wide enough that whatever doesn't fit in the standard CF size, doesn't have to protude too far from the PDA because of the wide (protrusions are wide and short), versus SD/MS narrow and long). And I don't have to pay extra for further miniturization to fit the device into an SD or MS size.

That's (hardware and slot standardization) where we're being clobbered in the PalmOS market to my great embarrassment. With the lack of follow on devices of the ilk of the HE330 (from any licensee) we fall behind PPC again.

Take an accessory in CF form and you can pretty much use it on any PPC (granted some SD only devices require a sleeve to support CF, but at least they're available). And many of them work on a HE330.

What have we got on the Palm side (HandEra excepted)? Gorky sleds, and a mish mash of slot standards. You're virtually guaranteed that you're not going to be able to use your accessories on another PalmOS brand device if you make a switch/upgrade to something else.

And on both PalmOS PDA's and PocketPC's RAM is a precious resource. And it's why we rely so heavily on card slots these days. But the lack of dual slots really becomes a problem when you get around to pulling your memory card to add in a camera, WiFi, BT, barcode scanners, VGA output for presentations or whatever. Where do you have room to put the pictures, or all the Network related apps to use with the WiFi or BlueTooth, or the large database to go with the barcode scanner, or the large presentation to go with the VGA card.

Dual slots, gets very critical here.

So much to our shame, PalmOS licensees here seem to continue to have their heads in the sands, and PPC's even after all this time are still killing us on the Hardware side (and now thanks to Dell, View Sonic, and now HP, even taking us on Price). It's fortunate for us they still don't have an OS to compare with, and there's a little more time.

Sony had me hoping with the NX70, and it's dual slots, but instead that CF slot remains largely unsupported, and there's this new MS format haze to clear away.

It's really time for a PalmOS licensee to pick up where HandEra left off and bring in some sensible OS5 hardware. Because Palm, Handspring, Sony and HandEra just aren't getting it done... Maybe they'll surprise us in the new year but track records aren't encouraging.

--Dave