Cliesource, please revive the CF Driver Contest

[oyakov]

People,

Everybody, who was so supportive to the original Compact Flash Memory Driver Contest, please help my new effort to revive this Contest. There are so many people interested in the Driver. We know, at least several developers still work on the driver. But, unfortunately, all information and our many discussions of the subject were lost with the Cliesource DB crash.

We are on our own in this battle against Sony. Yes, it's a battle against mighty Sony. It's so easy for them to help us. All they need to do is release some tech data on the CF slot. But they won't do this. They don't care what we want. All they care is their Memory Stick sales. We need to prove that this terrible Sony monopoly is WRONG. We, consumers, need this driver and we'll get it no matter what!

Please voice your opinion, don't just sit there and wait while others will do the job for you. Please write in this thread, maybe Cliesource administration finally will hear our voices.

[williepalm]

I personally feel that what we need is a real good prize for the creator of the driver. A brand new NZ90 and a free trip to Disneyland ?

[Donor]

Originally posted by williepalm
I personally feel that what we need is a real good prize for the creator of the driver. A brand new NZ90 and a free trip to Disneyland ?

Hey, the $1800 prize could have covered what you proposed.

$800 for the NZ
$150 for the WL100
$850 for Disyneland Trip.

Right?

[oyakov]

Originally posted by williepalm
I personally feel that what we need is a real good prize for the creator of the driver. A brand new NZ90 and a free trip to Disneyland ?

This Contest is so important not because of the prize money. Developers will get their money one way or another. This Contest will show that we really CARE. I think, this is what is really important.

Last time, when we started the original contest, it was reported on all major PDA web sites. It was impossible to miss for all interested people. And I'm pretty sure Sony didn't miss it too.

[oyakov]

All we need is another month or two at the most, and we WILL HAVE our driver!

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by Donor


Hey, the $1800 prize could have covered what you proposed.

$800 for the NZ
$150 for the WL100
$850 for Disyneland Trip.

Right?

Don't forget to add the one gigabyte MS-Pro for another $880.00.

[neo_deets]

I'm very intrested in purchasing a NX but the fact that the drivers have not been written and that you guys are having such a hard time (I know that can be an anoying process) with it makes me wonder how much flexabily they built into this platform. Sony is not know for their openness.
Well good luck guys.

If you build it they will come.
Cheers ;)
neo_deets

[deadlyfoez]

Listen, I have a HUGELY strong feeling that no matter what we do on a software end of things, we still will not be able to access date from a cf memory card. Reading everything I've read, and I did a lot of cracking, I have a feeling that sony made it impossible through the hardware they have implemented.

I've been working strongly on this for a few months now, I even started a thread before the "big crash" which had a group of us trying to figure things out.

I have come to this conclusion on my own expertise.

The only other way I can see of making it possible is if the nx's are os6 upgradable. os6 is going to be more native to the arm's coding. os5, even os5.2 is still not native enough to the processor.

[oyakov]

Try talking to dmp. I hear a very different story from him.

[jmg_NX21]

Hmmm, deadlyfoez depressed me... there MAY be some hope?

Perhaps THEY need to begin another thread!

[oyakov]

There IS hope. As I mentioned earlier, I'm in contact with one of the developers working on CF driver. His screen name is dmp and he posted some information on this board in the past giving us some updates. He is very optimistic and I expect to hear very good news from him in the very nearest future.

[Tek Phreak]

I say he just charges a fair price like $5 for the driver. That way, he's not profiteering it, but he still makes good cash on it and he can do it independently and not have a required deadline. I mean, he's probably doing it for himself as much as he is us. But i think he should make some cash on this too. Just not charge $20 for it...

Enjoy.
-Tek

[Unregistered]

I personally think continuing the contest is a bad idea. The original contest served its purpose of getting attention and showing developers that there was a substantial demand for a product. The problem with prize money is that it's still a minor amount compared to possible revenues. A lot of people are going to be upset when they donate money and the resulting driver is released as a commercial app. You'll never raise enough money to convince people to forego commercial sales. Realistically this driver would sell very well today at $35-$50 a copy. People are going to think they're entitled to a free driver because they contributed $10. A developer will make more the first day in sales than the entire prize amount so why run a contest? It's just going to lead to hard feelings. The only way a contest works is if you require an open source driver release and that would likely eliminate nearly all of the developers any way. There's too much work involved in this creation to do it for $2000. If a developer goes commercial at least they can be properly compensated.

Plus a driver may still be months away if even possible at all. How do you run an open ended contest that might never end? Do people wait a year before requesting refunds?

Don't get me wrong I really want to see a CF driver released. I just think the market incentives are already so much higher than what a contest offers that the contest isn't needed. Anybody who can write this driver should already know that they will do very well, even better now that the NZ series should also benefit from it. Save your prize money. You'll need it as a registration fee soon enough.

[-MV-]

the contest winner will get the prize money, but it's not necessarily that the developer make it freeware, he can charge a minimal amount of let's say 10-20 bucks for the driver...

[thermite]

I am a former employee at Sony that worked directly with Clies. I was told specifically that the CF slot is fully functional as long as someone can write a driver. I dont think they would have lied to us. I think it may just take some time. Just my opinion.

-thermite

[oyakov]

thermite,

Thanks for the info.
As a former Sony employee, could you please give us your opinion on Sony not giving any tech info on CF slot to developers. Is is an MS sales problem or what?

[reggae]

I agree with thermite and the dude working with dmp. the cf slot IS standard. the proof is in the fact of the interoperablity of the wl100 on other systems and the recognition (or lack thereof) when inserting into the nx. if you notice on card info, there is no destiction between the wl100, a microdrive, or anything else stuck in that slot... i know, i tried.

i am a software engineer but i've only done high level programming (db, scripts, websites and stuff) low level coding (like writing drivers) takes time and a LOT patience. in actuallity sony is not the one holding us up for lack of documentation... its actually neomagic who's written the controller for that slot. once their api is open, it's only a matter of time.

[aardvarko]

Originally posted by deadlyfoez
I have come to this conclusion on my own expertise.And modesty?

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by -MV-
the contest winner will get the prize money, but it's not necessarily that the developer make it freeware, he can charge a minimal amount of let's say 10-20 bucks for the driver...

Sounds good to me, considering all the work that is involved.

[dks99]

Personally I would love to be able to stick my CF card in the clie.
I have an SLR camera which uses CF cards and this would allow me to preview my shots on a nice large display.
I would still use MS for apps and mp3s

However ,
Sony would be kind of killing its own Memory Stick market if they allowed the Clie to use CF cards instead...

Would they lean on the side of "good manners" and allow the CF use
or would they go for profits and disable the slot somehow ?

Just my 2c...

[GunMetalMan]

If that was true, they would not have included a CF slot, but JUST a MS slot. Sony knew that they needed more than one expandable platform and that is why they added the CF. It may be that Sony just does not have the staff to focus on the CF drivers for memory as well as R&D, OS5.X development and preparing their line for OS6 and beyond.

Let's give them some credit. There was also a story today about Sony licensing the Toshiba USB chip for their handhelds. So they must be thinking of even more expansion and inter-operability.

On another note, let the developer finish their work before making them worry about sales and marketing of the driver. A lot of us would pay $10 to $50 to get our hands on a driver that would give us unlimited memory expansion potential. From there, think about all of the things we could do with all of the CF products out there... to dream.

Add my 2c...

[Unregistered]

I must say one of the happiest days in my life was when I`ve heard about I could use the CF card with my clie. I have the MS stick 128 mb, and I still need to use the cf slot. We can promise Sony that we all will buy their MS as well, that way they may drop their concern about the memory stick sales. Make no mistake that slot is not just for memory there are a lot of accessories that we can hook up to that slot that sony even doesn`t aware of all those.

I strongly support our idea to get a solution for the CF slot.

Thanks

[Unregistered]

I like the Idea for the driver, I mean i would rather pay for a 512mb CF card. than a memory stick. But until then, Sony is releasing a 512 memory stick PRO model (it will come in 256,512, even 1GB!!!) yeah, its gonna be expensive..we all know SONY. But at least we won't have to worry about incompatibility. The only thing that scares me is, are the PRO models gonna have Copyright Protection issues, (like the MAGIC Gate mem sticks???)
Yeah, i know...it's not the answer you've been looking for, but at least its a direction. Hit me Back...

[GunMetalMan]

Check this out. Looks like there may be some hope of getting drivers from PALM rather than SONY.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/01/24/cx_ah_0124tentech.html?
partner=yahoo&referrer=

[Tek Phreak]

where are you intrepreting that from this article?

Enjoy.
-Tek

[GunMetalMan]

Originally posted by Tek Phreak
where are you intrepreting that from this article?

Enjoy.
-Tek

 

<!--StartFragment -->&nbsp;<SPAN class=mainarttxt>There are four products in the series. The first is a card that fits into a Compact Flash memory slot that handles the Wi-Fi connection, but also includes 128 megabytes of flash memory storage. Another fits into the SD Memory card slot that is increasingly common on PDAs running both the Microsoft and <B>Palm</B> (nasdaq: ttp://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/compinfo/CompanyTearsheet.jhtml?tkr=PALM">PALM (maintkrlink href=") - news (http://www.forbes.com/markets/company_news.jhtml?ticker=PALM)- people (http://www.forbes.com/peopletracker/results.jhtml?startRow=0&amp;name=&amp;ticker=PALM)) operating systems, and includes 256 MB of storage. Two others in the product line are simply Wi-Fi cards without storage that fit into CF and SD slots. The company says that a CF card product that includes 256 MB of storage space will launch later in the year. </SPAN>

<SPAN class=mainarttxt>One bit of good news for those using Palm OS devices with SD card slots is that the SanDisk cards will support Palm OS 4 and higher. That's good news for owners of some Palm devices like Palm's m515 or <B>Handspring</B>'s <B></B>(nasdaq: ttp://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/compinfo/CompanyTearsheet.jhtml?tkr=HAND">HAND (maintkrlink href=") - news (http://www.forbes.com/markets/company_news.jhtml?ticker=HAND)- people (http://www.forbes.com/peopletracker/results.jhtml?startRow=0&amp;name=&amp;ticker=HAND)) Treo 90, both of which have an SD card slot but no integrated wireless capability. </SPAN>

<SPAN class=mainarttxt>The only catch is that the PDA has to support SDIO, a technology that allows for add-on devices that fit in the SD card slot, but that do a lot more than just store data. Getting your PDA to support SDIO may require an upgrade to your existing operating system. Handspring, for example, announced just such a download for the Treo 90 some months ago while others support SDIO right out of the box, so check with your PDA manufacturer. </SPAN>

<SPAN class=mainarttxt></SPAN>&nbsp;

<SPAN class=mainarttxt>Yeah. It's a stretch, but a guy can hope.</SPAN>

[aardvarko]

SanDisk will most likely be providing an SDIO-specific driver, specific to the chipset they are using. Nothing to do with either Palm or PalmSource.

[aardvarko]

And DEFINITELY nothing to do with the CF storage issue.

[GunMetalMan]

And we can't learn anything from those drivers?

[aardvarko]

No, not really... SDIO doesn't have a whole lot to do with CompactFlash. The primary problem with the Clie is interfacing with Sony's CompactFlash APIs/interfaces, particularly in regards to the appropriate memory addresses. (Or so I understand it.)

[pkhliu]

Just FYI:

If someone still remembered, the contest said the driver could be a freeware or shareware.&nbsp;

[Flyed]

Am I missing something here?
I was recently able to download a driver from this forum that allows me to use an AmbiCom, EZ Jack, Compact Flash 56K Modem with my NX70V/U.

It works great.

Ed

[jedix]

Originally posted by pkhliu
Just FYI:

If someone still remembered, the contest said the driver could be a freeware or shareware.&nbsp;


Could be, but doesn't have to be, if I remember correctly. So if the developer wants to charge for it, they can. Personally, if I had developed one, I would still charge for it. I'm not a developer, but I know that for all the hard work that goes into it, that prize money is not enough. If someone does pull through with it, I'm willing to pay, assuming its a fair rate.

[pelaca]

Originally posted by deadlyfoez
Listen, I have a HUGELY strong feeling that no matter what we do on a software end of things, we still will not be able to access date from a cf memory card. Reading everything I've read, and I did a lot of cracking, I have a feeling that sony made it impossible through the hardware they have implemented.

I've been working strongly on this for a few months now, I even started a thread before the "big crash" which had a group of us trying to figure things out.

I have come to this conclusion on my own expertise.

The only other way I can see of making it possible is if the nx's are os6 upgradable. os6 is going to be more native to the arm's coding. os5, even os5.2 is still not native enough to the processor.

I can say the NX uses the Neomagic NMC1121 (http://www.neomagic.com/product/peripherals.asp) as CF controller. This chip supports any CF device...
And the SDK 5.0 from Sony contains these lines:
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdMulti 0x00
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdMemory 0x01
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdSerial 0x02
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdParallel 0x03
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdFixed 0x04
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdVideo 0x05
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdNetwork 0x06
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdAims 0x07
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdScsi 0x08
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdSecurity 0x09
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdInstruments 0x0A
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdSerialIOBus 0x0B
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdVenderSpecific 0xFE
#define sysPnpCfFuncIdDoNotUse 0xFF

/* CF */
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc0 (0x01)
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc1 (0x02)
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc2 (0x04)
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc3 (0x08)
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc4 (0x10)
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc5 (0x20)
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc6 (0x40)
#define sysPnpHandledCFFunc7 (0x80)

/* MS */
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc0 (0x01)
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc1 (0x02)
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc2 (0x04)
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc3 (0x08)
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc4 (0x10)
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc5 (0x20)
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc6 (0x40)
#define sysPnpHandledMSFunc7 (0x80)


And many other lines for CF slot...
For these 2 reasons you are wrong in your conclusions...

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by pelaca


I can say the NX uses the Neomagic NMC1121 (http://www.neomagic.com/product/peripherals.asp) as CF controller. This chip supports any CF device...
And the SDK 5.0 from Sony contains these lines:


And many other lines for CF slot...
For these 2 reasons you are wrong in your conclusions...

Sony also says that it is a standard CF type II slot.

[johnajb]

I would be happy with a compact flash adapter that would let me use a mem stick. that would give me 2 expansion slots one for blurtooth and one for memory

[birick]

Flyed-

You are correct about the CF modem driver that you were able to download thanks to Pelaca and many others.

What is being discussed here is getting full funtionality out of the CF slot so that folks can use CF memory etc.

[erez]

break a leg (or sony's leg) with the development

[mashoutposse]

I would be happy with a compact flash adapter that would let me use a mem stick.

Good idea. Even Sony themselves shouldn't see anything wrong with this.

[cyclone]

If SanDisk is making a combined WiFi / 128MB CF card, the Clie would be a natural market for it. Hopefully they will find a way to provide driver support...