Re: Apple2 USB Stick interface with Vinculum chip

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <ebGdnVJre6odhKjbnZ2dnUVZ_vCknZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:

> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>> In article <9JadnQAH6JJiAq7bnZ2dnUVZ_hqdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
>> Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
>> 
>>>BluPhoenyx wrote:
>>>
>>>>It could also allow users to take advantage of the smaller sized (in 
>>>>memory) cards which should be getting very cheap. For example, I have an 
>>>>8 mb card from a digital camera from when we replaced it for a larger 
>>>>version.
>>>
>>>Actually, though there are no doubt lots of older smaller cards around
>>>that would be considered "junk", it's getting hard to find new flash
>>>media less than a gigabyte.
>> 
>> Perhaps that depends on where you live, but I could easily go out and
>> buy flash memory cards of 256 or 512 MBytes tomorrow if I wanted to -
>> both CF, SD and Memory Stick.  Smaller cards than that I'm currently
>> unable to find though.
>> 
>>>And 1-2GB is about the "sweet spot" in terms of pricing, too, with the
>>>price running about $7/GB.  Of course, this depends loosely on speed,
>>>but *any* speed media is "fast" for the Apple II.
>> 
>> You're quite right about the "sweet spot" in pricing.  Those 256 and 512
>> MB cards I referred to above aren't much cheaper than the 1 GB cards.
>> The 512 MB cards are perhaps 25% cheaper and the 256 MB cards 35%
>> cheaper than the 1 GB cards.
> 
> Over here (US), those smaller devices are usually available in stores
> that sell for full retail, and so are typically *more* expensive than
> the 1GB devices that are widely discounted by electronics stores.
> 
> They are clearly no longer "mainstream" production, but are often
> old stock.

That's obviously the case -- but they are still not difficult to find
if you really need one - right?

Some time ago, a friend of mine asked me about a problem he had: he
wanted to format his 2 GB SD card to be used with his HP-49G+ calculator,
but had failed to succeed.  It turned out his SD card was too large:
the HP-49G+ can only handle mass storage devices formatted as FAT-16,
and there's an upper limit to the size of such "disks", and it's well
below 2 GB.  So I pointed him to somewhere where he could buy a 256 MB
SD card.  He did so, and had no problem formatting it for his HP-49G+.
The objects there are quite small, so 256 MB is plenty of memory for
the HP-49G+.

>>>As you probably know, there is a worldwide glut of NAND flash memory
>>>capacity, and prices are expected to stay unusually low for at least
>>>the rest of the year.  (Of course, that's in addition to the usual
>>>Moore's "Law" downward price trend.)
>>>
>>>-michael

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Grev Turegatan 40,  SE-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW:     http://stjarnhimlen.se/