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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: SWAUG on April 30, 2003, 11:55:26 PM

Title: SWAUG REVIEW: USB Pen Drive on Amiga
Post by: SWAUG on April 30, 2003, 11:55:26 PM

Take a look at the latest review on SWAUG.org.uk

The USB Pen Drive gets the spotlight treatment this time and we see how well it works on the Amiga.

Could this technology be the end of floppy disks or even the Iomega Zip 100 ?

Find out here:

http://www.swaug.org.uk/pendrive

Title: Re: SWAUG REVIEW: USB Pen Drive on Amiga
Post by: Quixote on May 01, 2003, 01:29:03 AM

;-) Impressive!

Title: Re: SWAUG REVIEW: USB Pen Drive on Amiga
Post by: Ohno on May 01, 2003, 07:36:14 AM

Cool, I have an i-bead (http://www.mp3playerstore.com/buy_it_now__/ibead.htm) MP3/WMA-player, which is a usb-pen drive as well. Really nice. Plug it into the USB-port and you have an extra drive, upload any data (all MP3's/WMA-files uploaded are accessible by the MP3/WMA-player), it also has a FM-radio with 16 programmable frequency positions. It has it's own battery for playing music, which it charges through the USB-port in less then 3 hours. And then it can play for over 14 hours. Glad to know Amiga now supports these things as well.

I sure hope the A1 will also support them (and being able to boot from these devices would be cool as well.. some modern PC's already do)...

Regards,

Onno

Title: Re: SWAUG REVIEW: USB Pen Drive on Amiga
Post by: Quixote on May 01, 2003, 11:22:08 AM

Quote

I sure hope the A1 will also support them (and being able to boot from these devices would be cool as well.. some modern PC's already do)...

;-) The A1 has USB ports as standard.  And since support for devices like these are part of the USB standard, they should work just fine.

Title: Re: SWAUG REVIEW: USB Pen Drive on Amiga
Post by: Hattig on May 02, 2003, 01:16:11 AM

I am pretty certain that PPCBoot (or whatever it is currently called) allows booting from USB devices, although I do not know how it priorities which USB device to boot from :)

Title: Re: SWAUG REVIEW: USB Pen Drive on Amiga
Post by: Floid on May 02, 2003, 08:56:02 AM

The usual caveats apply:

-Rewrite lifetime is still limited.  If you use it as intended- floppy replacement, etc- it should be fine; using it as a boot device may last as long or longer than an HD, but people have had them die after using them for swap.  Devices using Intel StrataFlash (if any do) are probably the worst off in this regard.

-It's only interoperable if you stick to the Esperanto that is the default FAT format, of course.  No magic there, though someday all platforms are supposed to reach UDF 'nirvana.'

-Data integrity is a tossup.  Likely very reliable compared to Zip, and can't be scratched like CD/DVD, but on the other hand, one bad static jolt could potentially kill it.  Humid storage conditions could corrode the connector, while attempts you make to to protect it might, too.  (Viz. chip-eating ESD foam.)

-'Standard' solid-state memory products may or may not be cheaper per-MB.  These things are basically the equivalent of a CF card + CF reader in one package; CF and SD readers are now <=$9, though you may have to cross your fingers as far as compatibility.  (Readers supporting a single media type should 'usually' work anywhere.  Similar bad luck could no doubt be had among the various pendrive products available.)

Certainly well-suited as a Zip replacement (isn't anything?), but I wouldn't trade a MO drive in for one, just yet.