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General discussion

Does this SD card device exist?

May 21, 2005 12:45PM PDT

Is there some type of SD card that exists that has a ribon cable and two SD cards on each end, where one SD card is a dummy card, the other is a real one. application: digital camera with SD card slot connecting to handheld with SD card slot for the purpose of taking photos and dumping/viewing directly into the handheld.

Or maybe some type of software that allows the USB connection on your camera to connect to the handheld (i've read that handhelds are not HOSTS so this wouldn't work)?

Or posibly using a bluetooth SD card in a digital camera to establish connection with a blue tooth enabled handheld device?

Sorry for getting all 007 on everyone lol.

Discussion is locked

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You need to research this.
May 21, 2005 12:50PM PDT
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thanks
May 21, 2005 12:56PM PDT

Thanks Bob, great find. I guess still the engineer in me is curious to find out if this type of device existed as I described. If not, it looks like a great challenge to take on. I've heard of the bluetooth cameras, but have never actually checked one out, that one looks pretty good. Still the idea of making ANY sd/memory card, etc. enabled camera acessable to current hardware seems appealing to me, but might run into firmware issues.

thanks Bob

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My question is...
May 21, 2005 11:53PM PDT

What are you trying to do?

The big picture please. It's much like me telling you I need a component of x.y.z spec but if I told you I had a hole in the side of my boat you could tell me to shove a life jacket in it and duck tape it to get home.

Bob

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Hey Bob
May 25, 2005 9:46AM PDT

Hey Bob, thanks for the input. Well, the big picture is actually as I described Happy If one person knows of such a device that exists, then that would be addressing the question Happy.

I'm asking the question from the prespective of a designer, as opposed to an end user. I'm not asking anyone to give me the end result, I'm asking some very smart tech savy people from cnet if they know of a device as I mentioned that existed. Public questioning is a smarter form of finding out things like this as opposed to attempting to hand pick something out of the unlimited resources of a web search.

Once again, this is from an engineering standpoint, I want to know if anybody out there has heard of such a device, that's all I ask, and I think, a very simple question. I'm considering designing such an idea for a project Wink.

Think specs, not end product. I'm not really searching for an end product.

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Solution looking for a problem?
May 25, 2005 9:50AM PDT

I'll reveal I have worked on various embedded systems that use compact flash and other storage. I also go to the various trade shows and nothing close to what you note.

Hope this helps.

Bob

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Thanks
May 25, 2005 10:38AM PDT

Thanks Bob. I might attempt a small side project just for the fun of it. The object would be to utilize sd card slots as a sort of alternate communication bus for any device having an SD slot. Not exactly sure of all the applications, but that's usually the case in most scratch designs. I'm just extremely interested in the idea, as I could try and get one of my handhelds to talk to one of my robots that uses a customized brain, hence speaks a totally different language than your average PIC's, microcontrollers, or any of the like. It might not work, but I'm sure I will learn a load of things inbetween.

Thanks Bob, seems like you're very knowledgable in the tech field.

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Here's what I'd use to talk to the robot.
May 25, 2005 11:11AM PDT

Look at http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/AppNotes/00888a.pdf

Since most PDAs lack the serial port but kept the IrDA one can use that for the comms. For the Palm, the compiler and dev kits are free (Hint: Palmsource.com and the PODS download and API...)

Here's a small site I use to share code snippets with others for the Palm -> http://www.geocities.com/palmpass/index.html

With this setup, your interface can be done in no-time at all. I know the SD card interface and... that looks to be months of grinding work.

Bob

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very good
May 26, 2005 6:08AM PDT

Bob,

Very good resource links! The infrared solution would work seemlessly. I had a IR distance finding module that I made (rough distance finding using a simple circuit that measures the wavelength of IR signals bounced back, relative to the transmission wavelength). I probably could just use this existing hardware to establish bidirectional communication with the bot when its not actually in operation. If it needed to report any realtime data to my handheld (i have a pocket pc and a palm powered device), I'd have to either sit the handheld on the bot (its a small bot), risk IR interference- OR I could just design a longer range wireless solution. Something like an IR repeater.

Thanks for the resources. There's so many different options, and it all depends on how much I want the two devices to communicate. Right now I think i'm more interested in the robot talking to the handheld. Any talking from the handheld to the robot would be limited to "i heard you, continue".

Have you taken on any projects like this Bob?

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Yes.
May 26, 2005 7:02AM PDT

One of my customers uses stuff like that. But no robots, sorry.

Bob